Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes (10 January 183115 December 1898) was an English Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1865 to 1892. He enjoyed the "intimate friendship" of Edward VII when Prince of Wales and Alexandra of Denmark when Princess of Wales.

Sykes caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, November 1874.

Early life Sykes was the second son of Sir Tatton Sykes, 4th Baronet, and his wife Mary Ann Foulis, daughter of Sir William Foulis, 7th Baronet. His father was a popular horse breeder who bred bloodstock; however, he was an authoritarian father who bullied his children. Sykes was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Political career At the 1865 general election Sykes was elected Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Beverley. At the 1868 general election he was elected MP for the East Riding of Yorkshire, which he held until 1885, when it was divided under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. He was then elected for Buckrose, one of the constituencies into which his previous constituency had been divided, which he held until 1892, when he retired. Between 1868 and 1892, he made only six speeches, and did little except introduce the bill which became the Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869. This led to him being caricatured in Vanity Fair as "The Gull's friend". He was "widely recognised" as "Mr Brancepath" in Lothair, the novel by Benjamin Disraeli. He was honoured with the Order of St Lazarus of Belgium in 1879. Brantingham Thorpe was let from 1887. The estate in which he held a life interest reverted on his death to trustees of his father who sold it in 1899 to the then tenant of the house.

Ridley observes of Sykes' near-bankruptcy in attendance on the Prince that "if Sykes was a victim, Bertie was an unwitting oppressor; he had nothing but pity for his old friend, he visited him in London and he wrote to Tatton Sykes imploring him to provide for his brother". Previously, the Prince, having for years stayed with Sykes for the Doncaster races, chose to stay elsewhere in consideration of Sykes's reduced circumstances, saying "I do not wish him ... to spend a farthing on my account—I shall be furious if he gives me a birthday present!" After Sykes' death in 1898, the Prince of Wales installed a tablet to his memory at Westminster Abbey.