Sir Edmund Isham, 6th Baronet

Sir Edmund Isham, 6th Baronet (18 December 1690 – 15 December 1772) was a British Tory politician for several successive terms during the reigns of Kings George II and George III of Great Britain.

Biography

Edmund Isham was born on 18 December 1690 to Sir Justinian Isham, 4th Baronet of Lamport, Northamptonshire and his wife Elizabeth Turnor. He was educated at Rugby School and Wadham College, Oxford and embarked on a legal career, becoming an advocate in Doctors' Commons (1724) and a judge advocate in the Court of Admiralty (1731–41).

He unexpectedly became Baronet of Lamport on 5 March 1737 when his older brother Justinian died young. He was easily elected a few weeks later on 31 March 1737 to his brother's seat in Parliament as the Tory Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire, and ran unopposed each successive term after that for the rest of his life. He also inherited the family seat of Lamport Hall.

He died on 15 December 1772. Although he had married twice he left no children and was therefore succeeded as baronet by his nephew Justinian Isham, the son of his younger brother, the Reverend Euseby Isham. There is a painting of Sir Edmund by Thomas Hudson hanging at Lamport Hall.

Isham was mistakenly described as the leader of the Tories in the 1761 British general election in a Daily Telegraph article by Robert Jenrick and Jacob Rees-Mogg, with historian of the Conservative Party Alistair Cooke, Baron Lexden describing Isham as an "amiable Northamptonshire squire [who] served his county contentedly on the backbenches for 35 years. He could not have risen higher".