Charles Ponsonby

Sir Charles Edward Ponsonby, 1st Baronet (2 September 1879 – 28 January 1976), was a British Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1935 to 1950.

Early life and inheritance A member of the prominent Ponsonby family, he was the son of the Hon. Edwin Charles William Ponsonby (1851–1939), fifth son of Charles Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley, and Emily Dora Coope (1859–1897). He played cricket for Oxfordshire in the Minor Counties Championship from 1900 to 1903.

Following the death of his father in 1939 he inherited Woodleys House in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which his father had purchased in 1882. His father's estate was valued at £42,612 (gross) and £35,044 (net). He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden from 1941 to 1945.

He was Honorary Colonel of the Kent Yeomanry from 1942 to 1949. He was created a baronet, of Wootton, in 1956.

Private life Ponsonby married Hon. Winifred Marian Gibbs, daughter of Herbert Gibbs, 1st Baron Hunsdon, and Anna Maria Durant, on 23 July 1912. They had four daughters and a son who succeeded to the baronetcy.