BOUVERIE, Hon. Edward (1738-1810), of Delapre Abbey, Northants.

Bouverie was returned for Salisbury on his family interest. In Parliament he seems to have followed an independent line. He was classed by Jenkinson in the autumn of 1763 as ‘pro’; but voted with the Opposition on Wilkes, 15 Nov. 1763, and on general warrants, 15 and 18 Feb. 1764, and was listed by Newcastle, 10 May 1764 as a ‘sure friend’. Rockingham classed him as ‘pro’, July 1765, and as ‘Whig’, November 1766; but Townshend put him down as ‘Government’, January 1767, and Newcastle, 2 Mar. 1767 as ‘Tory’. No other vote by him is reported for this Parliament. In the next he voted with Administration on the expulsion of Wilkes, 3 Feb. 1769, and the Middlesex election, 15 Apr. and 8 May 1769, but with Opposition on the Spanish convention, 13 Feb. 1771. There is no record of his having spoken in the House during this period. In 1771 he resigned his seat in favour of his nephew Jacob Bouverie, Viscount Folkestone, now of age.

At the general election of 1774 Bouverie offered himself at Northampton, hoping for the support of the Compton interest, but withdrew without making a canvass.John Rowell, steward at Castle Ashby, to Lord Northampton, ‘Christmas eve’, 1774. Northampton mss. Ex inf. V. A. Hatley. At the by-election of 1782 he may also have considered standing.See advertisement in Northampton Merc. 8 Apr. 1782. Before the general election of 1784 Lord Spencer reported to his mother that Bouverie was to stand ‘in avowed opposition to Lord Lucan, supported by a few of the malcontents of the Compton interest and all that description’; but next day he wrote again that ‘the malcontents ... finding that Mr. Bouverie would only lend them his name, but not appear in person, they have set up Mr. Trotman’.29, 30 Mar. 1784, Spencer mss at Althorp. Bouverie successfully contested Northampton in 1790. He was a staunch supporter of Fox and voted with him consistently even after the outbreak of war with France.

He died 3 Sept. 1810.