Charles Tennant (politician)

Charles Tennant (1 July 1796, in Bloomsbury – 10 March 1873) was an English landowner and politician.

Life and politics

Tennant was born in Bloomsbury, London. He was the second son of George Tennant (1765–1832), attorney and landowner, builder of the Neath and Tennant Canal in Glamorganshire. He was educated at Harrow School; and then studied law.

From 1830 to 1831 he was Member of Parliament for St Albans, with James Grimston. He supported the Reform Act 1832. In 1830 he was one of the founders of the National Colonisation Society, advocating emigration to British colonies.

His wife, Gertrude Barbara Rich Collier (1819–1918), was a notable society hostess. They had a son, Charles Coombe Tennant (1852–1928), and five daughters, three surviving to adulthood: Alice (1848-1930), who remained unmarried; Dorothy (1855-1926), who married the explorer Henry Morton Stanley; and Eveleen (1856-1937), who married the spiritualist and classical scholar Frederic William Henry Myers (1843-1901).

Tennant's political publications include The People's Blue Book (1857) and The Bank of England and the Organization of Credit in England (1866), opposing the Bank Charter Act 1844.

References

• David Waller (2004). "Charles Tennant (1796–1873)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/101386. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)