Family and Education

b. 7 Aug. 1693, 1st s. of Sir Edmund Bacon, 4th Bt., M.P., of Gillingham by Philippa, da. and coh. of Sir Edmund Bacon, 4th Bt., of Redgrave, Suff. educ. Beccles and Bishop’s Stortford; Gonville and Caius, Camb. 1710, fellow 1716-20; M. Temple 1714. m. 7 Nov. 1724, Susan, da. of Sir Isaac Rebow of Colchester, 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 10 July 1721.

Offices Held

Biography

‘Gillingham Sir Edmund’, as Bacon was called in his county to distinguish him from his namesake of Garboldisham,1 was descended from Lord Keeper Bacon, the father of Francis Bacon. He is described as ‘an attached servant to Sir Robert Walpole, who upon his being a Member of Parliament procured him a grant for a term of years of certain lighthouses worth £500 a year’.2 In the published list of Members voting on the excise bill in 1733 he is shown as having ‘a grant of crown lands at Chatham and a brother in the customs’.3 His first recorded speech was made on 12 Nov 1724, when he seconded the Address. He is subsequently recorded as speaking for the Government on the army, 23 Nov. 1724 and 25 Jan. 1727;4 a vote of credit, 12 Apr. 1727; the Address, 21 Jan. 1729 and 13 Jan. 1730; the army, 29 Jan. 1730; Dunkirk, 12 Feb. 1730; the Hessians, 3 Feb. 1731; and foreign affairs, 23 Feb. 1731.5 According to the 2nd Earl of Oxford, he was known as ‘Eggs and Bacon for his wise speech in the House of Commons when the salt duty was taken off’ in 1730.6 He also spoke against Sir John Barnard’s scheme for converting the national debt in 1737. He died 4 Oct. 1738.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. HMC Portland, vi. 152.
• 2. HMC Egmont Diary, i. 87.
• 3. Gent. Mag. 1733, p. 575.
• 4. Knatchbull Diary.
• 5. HMC Egmont Diary, i. 5, 12, 43, 126, 143; iii. 330.
• 6. HMC Portland, loc. cit.