Evelyn Denison, 1st Viscount Ossington

John Evelyn Denison, 1st Viscount Ossington, PC (27 January 1800 – 7 March 1873) was a British statesman who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1857 to 1872. He is the eponym of Speaker Denison's rule.

Background and education Denison was born at Ossington, Nottinghamshire, the eldest son of John Denison (died 1820), and the older brother of Edward Denison, bishop of Salisbury, William Denison, colonial governor in Australia and India, and George Denison, a conservative churchman. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

Political career Sir Evelyn Denison, speaker, in a Vanity Fair cartoon of 1870. A Whig, he became Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1823, being returned for Hastings three years later, and holding for a short time a subordinate position in George Canning's ministry. Defeated in 1830 both at Newcastle-under-Lyme and then at Liverpool, Denison secured a seat as one of the members for Nottinghamshire in 1831. After the Great Reform Act he represented the southern division of Nottinghamshire from 1832 until the general election of 1837. He was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire for 1839–40.

Denison then represented Malton from 1841 to 1857, and North Nottinghamshire from 1857 to 1872. Re-elected at the beginning of three successive parliaments he retained this position until February 1872, when he resigned and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Ossington, of Ossington in the County of Nottingham. He refused, however, to accept the pension usually given to retiring Speakers.

His Ossington Hall estate passed to his nephew William Evelyn Denison, son of his brother Sir William Thomas Denison.

Ossington Street in London was named in his honour.

Arms