UPTON, Hon. Arthur Percy (1777-1855).

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1818 - 1826

Family and Education

b. 12/13 June 1777, 3rd s. of Clotworthy, 1st Baron Templetown [I], by Elizabeth, da. of Shuckburgh Boughton of Poston Court, Herefs.; bro. of John Henry Upton*, 2nd Baron Templetown [I], and Hon. Fulk Greville Howard*. educ. Palgrave, Suff.; Westminster 1786; R. mil. acad. Berlin. unm. CB 4 June 1815.

Offices Held

Ensign, 2 Ft. Gds. 1793, lt. and capt. 1795; a.d.c. to Sir R. Abercromby 1799; maj. 13 Ft. 1807; lt.-col. 7 W.I. regt. 1807, 1 Ft. Gds. 1807; brevet col. 1814; 1st maj. 1 Ft. Gds. 1814; maj.-gen. 1821, lt.-gen. 1837, gen. 1851.

Equerry to the Queen 1810; a.d.c. to Duke of York 1815; equerry to Duchess of Kent by 1835.

Biography

Upton started his military career under royal patronage, for the Queen urged the Duke of York to give him a vacant ensigncy in the Coldstream Guards without purchase as he could not afford it. He was on active service for much of this period, in the Netherlands (1794, 1799, 1809) and in the Peninsula. In 1811 when he was posted to Cadiz, it was described as ‘a plan for getting Arthur Upton out of the country’.1 In 1815 he became military correspondent with the Bavarian army. He returned home much decorated.

In 1818 he was returned to Parliament for Bury by his brother-in-law the 5th Earl of Bristol. No vote of his either way, still less any speech, is known in his first Parliament. Gronow recalled him as a fund of anecdote about the royal family, a strict disciplinarian, but absent-minded. He was best known as a cricketer, who played in the first Gentlemen v. Players match in 1806, and he also featured as a violinist at fashionable musical soirees.2 He died 22 Jan. 1855.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: Winifred Stokes

Notes

  • 1. Prince of Wales Corresp. ii. 792; vii. 2961.
  • 2. Gronow, Reminiscences (1900), ii. 293; Old Westminsters, 941; Jnl. of Mrs Arbuthnot, i. 374; Gent. Mag. (1855), i. 306.