Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tufnell, Henry
TUFNELL, HENRY (1805–1854), politician, born at Chichester in 1805, was the elder son of William Tufnell of Chichester (1769–1809), by his wife Mary (d. 1829), daughter and coheiress of Lough Carleton. Henry was educated at Eton, and, proceeding to Christ Church, Oxford, matriculated on 21 May 1825, graduating B.A. in 1829. On 27 April 1827 he became a student at Lincoln's Inn. In 1831, when Sir Robert John Wilmot-Horton [q. v.] was appointed governor of Ceylon, Tufnell accompanied him as his private secretary, and, returning home about 1835, he became private secretary to Gilbert Elliot, second earl of Minto [q. v.] first lord of the admiralty. Under Lord Melbourne's administration, from April 1835 to September 1840 he was one of the lords of the treasury, and on 27 July 1837 he was returned to parliament in the whig interest as member for Ipswich, but was unseated on petition on 26 Feb. 1838. On 24 Jan. 1840 he was returned for Devonport, and retained his seat until within a few months of his death. On the formation of Lord John Russell's government in July 1846 Tufnell became secretary to the treasury; but in July 1850 the infirmity of his health compelled him to resign office. He died on 15 June 1854 at Catton Hall, Derbyshire. He was thrice married. In 1830 he married Anne Augusta (d. 1843), daughter of Sir Robert John Wilmot-Horton. In 1844 he married Frances (d. 1846), second daughter of Sir John Byng, first earl of Strafford [q. v.] by whom he had a daughter. In 1848 he married, as his third wife, Anne, second daughter of Archibald John Primrose, fourth earl of Rosebery [q. v.]; by her he had a son Henry.
In 1830, in conjunction with Sir George Cornewall Lewis [q. v.] Tufnell translated Karl Otfried Müller's ‘History and Antiquities of the Doric Race’ (Oxford, 8vo).
[Gent. Mag. 1854, ii. 299; Times, 17 June 1854; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Records of Lincoln's Inn, 1896, ii. 123; Official Returns of Members of Parliament.]