Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Eyncourt, Charles Tennyson
D'EYNCOURT, CHARLES TENNYSON (1784–1861), politician, second son of George Tennyson of Bayons Manor, Lincolnshire, M.P. for Bletchingley, who died on 4 July 1835, by Mary, daughter of John Turner of Castor, was baptised at Market Rasen on 20 July 1784, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1805 and M.A. in 1818. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 21 Nov. 1806, but does not appear to have practised. As member for Great Grimsby he entered parliament in 1818, and retained his seat for that borough till 1826. He sat for Bletchingley from 1826 to 1831, and on 3 May in that year, after a contest, obtained a seat for Stamford, in opposition to Lieutenant-colonel Thomas Chaplin. The excitement attending this election was very great, and led to a duel on Wormwood Scrubbs between Lord Thomas Cecil, the other member for Stamford, and Tennyson. After the passing of the Reform Bill the new metropolitan borough of Lambeth selected him as its first representative. He sat for that constituency twenty years, being defeated in 1852, when he withdrew to literary life at Bayons Manor. During his early parliamentary career he carried through the commons a Landlord and Tenant Bill, which afterwards became law, and on 28 May 1827 he succeeded in passing a measure to prohibit the setting of spring guns (7 & 8 Geo. IV, cap. xviii.). On the accession of the whig party to power he was appointed clerk of the ordnance (30 Dec. 1830), but retired in February 1832, ostensibly from ill-health, and was named a privy councillor on 6 Feb. He made unsuccessful attempts in 1833 and 1834 to bring in bills to shorten the duration of parliament and to repeal the Septennial Act. He gave his energetic support to all liberal measures, and advocated municipal reform and the repeal of the corn and navigation laws. On 22 June 1853 his friends in Lambeth presented him with a testimonial. He succeeded his father in 1835, and on 27 July in that year took by royal license the additional surname of D'Eyncourt. He was high steward of Louth, and a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Lincolnshire. He was much devoted to antiquarian subjects, and showed his architectural taste by the additions he made to the castellated mansion of Bayons Manor. On 19 Feb. 1829 he was elected F.R.S., having previously been nominated F.S.A. His death took place at the residence of his son-in-law, John Hinde Palmer, Q.C., 8A Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London, on 21 July 1861. He married, on 1 Jan. 1808, Frances Mary, only child of Rev. John Hutton, by whom he had eight children. She died on 26 Jan. 1878.
His names, Tennyson and D'Eyncourt, are found in connection with the following works by Charles Tennyson D'Eyncourt: 1. ‘Observations on the Proceedings against the Queen [Caroline], addressed to his Constituents by C. Tennyson, Esq.,’ 3rd edit. 1821. 2. ‘Report of a Speech on seconding Mr. John Smith's Motion for the Restoration of the Queen's Name to the Liturgy,’ 1821. 3. ‘Report of Speech on moving Second Reading of the Bill for Prohibiting the Use of Spring Guns,’ 1825. 4. ‘Speech on Motion to substitute the Hundred of Bassetlaw for the Town of Birmingham in the Bill for Disfranchising East Retford,’ 1828. 5. ‘Eustace, an elegy,’ 1851.
[Gent. Mag. Sept. 1861, pp. 328–30; Illustrated London News, 25 June 1853, pp. 515–16, and 8 Jan. 1859, p. 28; Foster's Royal Lineage (1883), pp. 24, 25.]