Henry Luttrell

Henry Luttrell (c. 1765 – 19 December 1851) was an English politician, wit and writer of society verse. He was the illegitimate son of Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton, Tory MP and career soldier.

Henry Luttrell secured a seat in the Irish House of Commons for Clonmines in 1798 and a post in the Irish government, which he commuted for a pension. Introduced into London society by the Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, his wit made him popular. Soon he began to write verse, in which the foibles of fashionable people were outlined.

In London and in Paris, he was a frequent dinner-table companion of Thomas Moore, Ireland's national bard, an hagiographer of United Irishmen whose insurrection in 1798 Luttrell's father, as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, had vigorously suppressed. Through Moore, he was also introduced to the Whig grandees Lord Lansdowne and Lord John Russell.