Family and Education

b. 20 May 1788, 1st s. of Peter Denys of Hans Place, Chelsea, and Fremington, Yorks. by Lady Charlotte Fermor, da. of George, 2nd Earl of Pomfret. educ. Trinity Coll. Camb. 1806; L. Inn 1808. m. 5 Dec. 1809, Elizabeth, da. of Edward George Lind of Burton, Westmld., 3s. 6da. cr. Bt. 23 Nov. 1813; suc. fa. 1816.

Offices Held

Equerry to Duke of Sussex 1812-43.

Cornet, Northants. yeoman cav. 1813.

Biography

Denys was the son of a drawing master whose father was an immigrant from Geneva and who married his pupil, thereby acquiring part of the Pomfret estates. Denys’s own less spectacular marriage displeased his father. His uncle George, 3rd Earl of Pomfret, urged Lord Liverpool to bestow a baronetcy on him, 1 June 1812, instead of on his father, as previously requested, because the latter was old and infirm. On 29 July Pomfret informed the premier that his application was now for the father after all, as the son’s allowance was inadequate to support the honour; on 30 Dec. 1812 he renewed the request. Denys senior was then sheriff of Northamptonshire and about to present a portrait of the late Spencer Perceval to the corporation of Northampton. Pomfret added, apropos of young Denys’s recent return to Parliament: ‘Mr Denys has brought in his son professedly upon those principles which my family have uniformly acted upon, and has thereby confirmed my former statement of his political sentiments’. The constituency was Hull, where he was adopted as a third man, on his way to contest Beverley. He appeared on the Treasury list of supporters.

Denys, rather than his father, received a baronetcy a year later. He was an inconspicuous Member. No speech of his is known. He voted against Catholic relief throughout in 1813 and again in 1817. His only other known votes were with ministers, on the civil list, 8 May 1815, and (in the minority) for the property tax, 18 Mar. 1816, when he broke into a month’s sick leave. He did not seek re-election in 1818. He died 26 Apr. 1857.

Farington, i. 78; vi. 277; Add. 38248, ff. 1, 346; 38251, f. 87.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: Winifred Stokes

Notes