Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake

Captain Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake (10 March 1783 – 21 March 1852) was a British Member of Parliament (MP) for Amersham from 1805 to 1832.

Personal life

Tyrwhitt-Drake was born on 10 March 1783, the eldest son of Captain Thomas Drake Tyrwhitt-Drake, MP for Amersham from 1795 to 1810, and his wife Anne, daughter of the Reverend William Wickham of Garsington, Oxfordshire. The elder Tyrwhitt-Drake was the son of William Drake, a long-standing MP for Amersham; the elder Thomas adopted the surname Tyrwhitt in 1776 in order to inherit the estates of his cousin Sir John de la Fountain Tyrwhitt, sixth Baronet, and then the additional surname of Drake in 1796 when his father died. He was commissioned into the South Buckinghamshire Yeomanry as a Captain in 1803. Together, they had four sons and eight daughters: Reverend John Tyrwhitt-Drake (born 1821) married Emily Charlotte Micklethwaite, daughter of Nathaniel Micklethwaite of Taverham Hall, Norfolk, and had children. Reverend Edward Tyrwhitt-Drake (1832–1904), who was the Rector of Amersham Susan Louisa Tyrwhitt-Drake Charlotte Diana Tyrwhitt-Drake married Captain Edward Chapman Clayton in 1860 and had children. Agnes Agatha Tyrwhitt-Drake After his re-election in 1826, he gave his support to the Corn Laws and the protection of agriculture. He continued to oppose Catholic relief, introducing, for instance, a petition against Catholic Emancipation in 1829. After 1830, he voted against electoral reform in 1831 and consistently opposed the Reform Bill introduced later in that year; in particular, he protested about the abolishing of Amersham as a constituency. When that bill became the Great Reform Act 1832, Tyrwhitt-Drake thereby lost his seat.

Later life

Tyrwhitt-Drake took little part in politics at even a local level after 1832, though he did raise his objections over the repealing of the Corn Laws in the following decade. He was a keen hunter, who was described in the History of Parliament as "one of the wealthiest commoners of his day". He died 21 March 1852, leaving annuities to his wife and children, and passing his estates on to his eldest son, Thomas.