Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Finch-Hatton, Edward

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FINCH-HATTON, EDWARD (d. 1771), diplomatist, was fifth son of Daniel Finch [q. v.], sixth earl of Winchilsea and second earl of Nottingham. He proceeded M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridlge, in 1718, was elected M.P. for his university to every parliament that met between 1727 and 1764, and instituted with his fellow-member, Thomas Townshend, the Members' Prizes in the university for essays in Latin prose. He held a long succession of diplomatic posts. He was envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Sweden; in the same capacity was present at the diet of Ratisbon, 1723, and went to the States-General in 1724. On 8 Feb. 1724–5 he was appointed to the court of Poland, and on 11 Jan. 1739 to that of Russia. On returning home he became groom of the royal bedchamber (1742), master of the robes (June 1757), and surveyor of the king's private woods in November 1760. He assumed in 1764 the additional name of Hatton, under the will of his aunt, Elizabeth (5 Oct. 1764), daughter of Christopher, viscount Hatton. He died 16 May 1771. In 1746 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Palmer of Wingham, Kent, by whom he had two sons, George (b. 30 June 1747) and John Emilius Daniel Edward (b. 19 May 1756), besides three daughters. George William [q. v.], the eldest son of Edward Finch-Hatton's heir, George, succeeded as tenth earl of Winchilsea and sixth earl of Nottingham on the death of his cousin in 1826.

[Collins's Peerage, iii. 296–7.]