Edward Loveden Loveden

Edward Loveden Loveden (ca. 1749/1751–1822) was an English Member of Parliament (MP), sometimes described as a Whig but often not voting with that party. Life The date of birth of Edward Loveden Loveden, whose birthname was Edward Loveden Townsend, is uncertain. He is variously stated to have been born in 1749, 1750 and 1751. His father was Thomas Townsend, from Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and his mother, Jane, was from Buscot, then in Berkshire. He attended Winchester College for three years up to 1765 and entered Trinity College, Oxford in 1767, by which time his father had died. He changed his name to Edward Loveden Loveden by royal license in 1772. The change was imposed on him by a relative – Edward Loveden, variously stated as his uncle or great-uncle – as a condition of their bequest to him of the manor at Buscot. He owned Buscot Park, near Faringdon in present-day Oxfordshire. Loveden entered the House of Commons from the Abingdon constituency in 1783 when he won a by-election caused by of the death of the sitting member, Henry Howorth. He sat then as an opponent of the Fox–North coalition and claimed to be a free agent, not tied to any political group. In the same year, he joined the Thames Navigation Commission, of which he became particularly active from 1789. Loveden retained his seat in the 1784 general election and, despite some local opposition based on his parsimonious tendencies, again in 1790. In 1793, he was aligned with the "third party" of William Windham. From that year, and coinciding with the end of his most active period as a Thames Commissioner, he became a member of the Board of Agriculture.