Edmund Boulnois | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Marylebone East | |
In office 1889–1906 | |
Preceded by | Lord Charles Beresford |
Succeeded by | Lord Robert Cecil |
Edmund Boulnois (17 June 1838 – 7 May 1911) was a British businessman and Conservative Party politician.[1][2][3][4]
Edmund was the son of William Boulnois of St John's Wood, the proprietor of the Baker Street Bazaar, Marylebone, London . He was educated at King Edward's School, Bury St. Edmunds and St John's College, Cambridge. He graduated with a BA degree in 1862, going on to gain an MA in 1868.[3][5] In 1863 he married Catherine Bennett of Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire.[6]
He succeeded his father as owner of the Bazaar and was also chairman of the West Middlesex Waterworks Company, a director of the London Life Association and of the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation.[2][3]
Boulnois was elected to the Marylebone Board of Guardians, of which he became the chairman.[7] In 1880 he was appointed a justice of the peace for Middlesex.[8] A member of the Conservative Party, at the 1886 general election he acted as election agent for Frederick Seager Hunt, member of parliament for Marylebone West.[9]
The Local Government Act 1888 created a new London County Council, with the first elections held in January 1889. Boulnois was chosen by the Marylebone Constitutional Union to contest the electoral division of Marylebone West.[10] He was elected as a member of the Conservative-backed Moderate Party, which formed the opposition group on the council.[2]
In July 1889 the sitting Conservative member of parliament for Marylebone East, Lord Charles Beresford, resigned his seat on becoming captain of HMS Undaunted.[11] Boulnois was chosen by the party to contest the resulting byelection. He held the seat with a majority of 493 votes, defeating the Liberal Party candidate, Granville George Leveson-Gower.[6] Boulnois held the seat until the 1906 general election, when he retired from parliament.[2][4][5]
When the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone was created in 1900, Boulnois was chosen as the borough's first mayor.[12] He served two consecutive terms as mayor.[2]
He visited Egypt in early 1901,[13] and again in late 1902 for the opening of the Aswan Dam.[14]
Boulnois maintained two residences: a town house in London's Portman Square and "Scotland", Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire.[2][4][5] He died at his Buckinghamshire home in May 1911, aged 72.[2]