Family and Education

b. c.1757, 1st s. of William Honywood by Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Clack of Wallingford, Berks., and gd.-s. of Sir John Honywood 3rd Bt.  educ. C.C.C. Oxf. 1775.  m. 13 Dec. 1779, Frances, da. of William, 2nd Visct. Courtenay, 1s. 6da.  suc. gd.-fa. as 4th Bt. 26 June 1781.

Offices Held

Biography

Honywood was returned unopposed for Steyning, his family borough, in 1784, but in 1785, for reasons unascertained, took the Chiltern Hundreds. In April 1788, after the death of his successor at Steyning, Thomas Edwards Freeman, he was again returned.

He voted with Pitt on parliamentary reform, 18 Apr. 1785, and on the Regency, 1788-9. And in a letter to Pitt, 4 Oct. 1791, asking for the place of receiver of the land tax for Kent, he declared ‘when my parliamentary support was necessary to you, I never even debated on the propriety of the measure’.1

There is no record of his having spoken in the House before 1790.

He died 29 Mar. 1806.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

• 1. Chatham mss.