Edward Brydges Willyams

Edward William Brydges Willyams (5 November 1834 – 10 October 1916) was a Liberal MP, successively for three Cornish constituencies. In 1892, he was appointed High Sheriff of Cornwall.

Life Willyams was born 6 November 1834, the son of Humphry Willyams, a banker, land-owner and Liberal elector of Truro and Ellen Frances Brydges Neynoe, his wife. She was the daughter of Colonel William Brydges Neynoe of Castle Neynoe, County Sligo.

His older brother, James Willyams died aged 38 in 1861.

Willyams was educated at Merton College, Oxford. and then on 5 June 1882 to Emily, a daughter of Sir Joseph Moses Levy, the proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, which then supported the Liberal Party. MP for East Cornwall, 1868–1874. MP for Truro, 1880–1885.

He stood for election at St Austell in 1887, as a Liberal Unionist but was defeated by the Gladstonian candidate, and at the Truro by-election in 1878 he lost to the Conservative candidate Arthur Tremayne.

Interests He was a keen supporter of the old Cornish sport of hurling.

Olive Willyams, the wife of his heir, Arthur Hugh Vivien Willyams, tried to obtain £4,000 from him, using promissory notes that he claimed were forged by her. She was committed to prison for three years and was afterwards declared to have become insane.

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