Charles Wykeham-Martin
(1801-1870)
8 May 1863

Volume 10, page 215, sitting number 13,230.

Born Charles Wykeham at Banbury in Oxfordshire on 11 September 1810, his father Fiennes Wykeham assumed the additional surname of Martin by Royal Licence in 1821 when he succeeded to Leeds Castle in Kent on the death of his relative, General Philip Martin.

Educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, Charles sat in the House of Commons for three periods. He was the MP for Newport on the Isle of Wight from 1841 to 1852, when he lost his seat. The following year he stood unsuccessfully for Maidstone. Between 1857 and 1859 he represented West Kent. In 1865 he was again elected MP for Newport, holding the seat until his death in 1870.

He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, a corresponding member of the Academy d'Archeologie de Belgique, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He served as a lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd Battalion Kent Volunteers, as a Deputy Lieutenant and as a Justice of the Peace for both Kent and Hampshire.

He married firstly on 12 April 1828 Lady Jemima Cornwallis, only daughter of James Mann, 5th Earl Cornwallis. Their marriage produced four children. After the death of his first wife in 1836 Charles married secondly on 18 June 1838 Matilda Trollope, daughter of Sir John Trollope, 6th Bt.

He appears on the 1861 census living at Leeds Castle with his wife Matilda. Also present on the night of the census were two of his children, a daughter-in-law and fifteen servants, including a butler, an under-butler and a footman, with a gardener and his family living in the lodge at the entrance to the estate.

Charles Wykeham-Martin died, aged 69, on 30 October 1870 at Leeds Castle, leaving an estate valued at £35,000.