Family and Education

b. ?1781, 1st s. of Sir William Honyman, 1st Bt., and bro. of Richard Bempde Johnstone Honyman*. unm.

Offices Held

Maj. (perm. rank) Reay’s fencibles 1794-8; half-pay, late Yorks. Fusiliers 1798-1802; brevet lt.-col. 1802; maj. 93 Ft. 1803; lt.-col. 18 Ft. 1806.

Biography

After fighting as a volunteer in the Egyptian campaign, Honyman served in Ireland with the 93rd Foot1 and went with the regiment in August 1805 on the expedition to the Cape, where he was wounded when leading an attack on the Dutch lines. He was returned for Orkney in 1806 on his father’s interest as a supporter of the ‘Talents’ and classed by William Adam among ‘friends of government unconnected with Lord Melville’; but shortly after his election he became lieutenant-colonel of the 18th Foot, subsequently on service in the West Indies. No vote or speech is recorded in his name and his father admitted to Lord Grenville, 1 May 1807, that Honyman ‘has been, and is likely to be employed in foreign service so as to be unable to give that attendance I should wish’.2 He did not seek re-election in 1807.

Honyman died of fever in Jamaica, 20 Nov. 1808, ‘in his 28th year’.3

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: David R. Fisher

Notes

• 1. HMC Graham of Fintry, 46.
• 2. Fortescue mss.
• 3. Gent. Mag. (1809), i. 182.