Edgar Keatinge

Major Sir Edgar Mayne Keatinge CBE JP (3 February 1905 – 7 August 1998) was an English farmer, soldier and Conservative Party politician. He is best known for having served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury St Edmunds from 1944 to 1945, after a high-profile by-election. He disliked the name Edgar and preferred to introduce himself as "Mike". An obituarist describes him as "a simple and loyal man who had, for a brief period, endured a significant role in national life; and discharged his duty with honour".

Early life Keatinge was born in Bombay, India (now Mumbai), when his father worked for the Indian Civil Service. His grandfather, Maurice Keatinge (1816–96), had been Principal Registrar Court of Probate, Ireland and his great-grandfather, Rt. Hon. Richard Keatinge, was Judge of the Prerogative Court of Ireland. (All no doubt connected to Maurice Keatinge). At the age of five he was sent to England to be educated, later boarding at Rugby, and then went to South Africa to study at the School of Agriculture in Natal. He worked for the South African Department of Education until 1929, when he returned to England. and they married in 1930. The honeymoon included a trip up the Rhine, during which Keatinge became convinced that another war with Germany was likely. During the next ten years, he divided his time between the Territorial Army, local activism in the Conservative Party, and work in Risby on Reginald Burrell's farm. He was particularly adept at the business of military organisation and became an artillery officer in the Suffolk Yeomanry. In World War II Keatinge served in the Royal Artillery. The three political parties which shared office in the wartime Coalition Government 1940–1945 had agreed not to contest by-elections when vacancies arose in seats held by the other coalition parties, and when Keatinge was selected later in January and Heilgers had been returned unopposed in 1931 and 1935. after a hard-fought campaign unfamiliar in a safe seat, but with a majority of only 12%.

The estate was in a ruinous condition after the war; large areas had been covered with concrete by the US VIII Bomber Command, all the hedges had overgrown enormously, and the Manor had been requisitioned for printing maps and the soldiers had stripped and sold the lead from the roof. Keatinge did not think it possible to effectively combine his role there with service in Parliament. for "political and public services in Suffolk and Wessex" having been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1954. to whom Sir Edgar transferred the Teffont Evias estate in portions between 1967 and 1981. William thus received a forestry award for the woodland that Edgar had planted and nurtured on the Air Force site. He died in 1998, aged 93.