{{Short description|British politician (1802–1862)}} {{Use British English|date=May 2015}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}}
'''Edward Stillingfleet Cayley''' (13 August 1802 – 25 February 1862) was a British Liberal Party politician.<ref name="Dutton"> Dutton, H. I., and J. E. King (1985) ''An Economic Exile: Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, 1802–1862.'' History of Political Economy 17(2): 203–218. </ref>
He was elected at the 1832 general election as a member of parliament for North Riding of Yorkshire,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue= 19010 |date= 4 January 1833 |page=27 }}</ref><ref name="craig1832-1885">{{cite book |last=Craig |first=F. W. S. |authorlink= F. W. S. Craig |title=British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 |orig-date=1977 |edition= 2nd |year=1989 |publisher= Parliamentary Research Services |location=Chichester |isbn= 0-900178-26-4 |page=489 }}</ref> and held the seat until his death in 1862, at the age of 59. He advocated free trade in Parliament and went to Rugby School and Brasenose College, Oxford, thus breaking the Cayley tradition of going to Cambridge.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9FY6AQAAMAAJ&dq=Edward+Stillingfleet+Cayley++Law+Magazine&pg=PA502 |title=Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review |date=1862 |publisher=A. Dodd and A. Smith |language=en}}</ref>
==Career== thumb|{{center|Yorkshire farm}} After graduating from Oxford, Cayley took up residence in North Yorkshire where he engaged in farming. He also undertook studies in history, economics, and philosophy to supplement his "dead language" formal education.<ref name="books.google.co.uk">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QP4hAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA355 |title=The Farmer's Magazine |date=1862 |language=en}}</ref> Caley became a "barrister-at-law" with membership in the Inner Temple.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fLkwAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA95 |title=The Law Magazine and Review: For Both Branches of the Legal Profession at Home and Abroad |date=1885 |publisher=Butterworths |language=en}}</ref> As a magistrate and barrister, his doors were always open for counsel. He promoted the Yorkshire and other agricultural societies as a speaker and writer. Thus, Cayley became well-known and highly respected by the farmers of his district, so much so that they called on him to represent them in Parliament. <!-- He agreed and against a combined Whig and Tory opposition, he won.<ref name="books.google.co.uk"/> --> At the 1832 general election he stood for election in the two-member county constituency of North Riding of Yorkshire as an independent of Liberal sympathies and a friend of the interests of small agriculturalists, 'unassisted by the aristocracy on either side'<ref>see report of Cayley's victory speech in {{cite news|title=Election for the North Riding|work=Morning Post|date=29 December 1832|location=London|page=2}}</ref> and was elected a member of parliament,<ref name="craig1832-1885"/><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=19010|date= 4 January 1833|page=27}}</ref> behind William Duncombe a Tory with major landholdings in the Riding, but ahead of John Charles Ramsden a former Whig MP for Yorkshire who had the support of the Whigs but was a West Riding industrialist. Cayley held the seat until his death in 1862, at the age of 59.
As an independent member of Parliament, Cayley fought against "inequalities of taxation". He served on the Agricultural distress and Hand-loom weavers committees<ref>Frederic Boase, ''Modern English Biography: A-H'' (Netherton and Worth, 1892), 37 online at https://books.google.com/books?id=GIVmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1635 and ''Farmer’s Magazine'' Vol 21, 1862, 354–356 online at https://books.google.com/books?id=QP4hAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA355.</ref>
Cayley died of heart disease while making the arduous trip to London. The ''Farmer’s Magazine'' gave Caley a glowing obituary as a "farmers' friend", who "stood with the farmers, by the farmers, and for the farmers."<ref name="books.google.co.uk"/>
==Family== Cayley was born at Newbold Hall near Market Weighton. He died at Dean's Yard, Westminster. His parents John Cayley (1786–1846) and Elizabeth Sarah Stillingfleet (1787–1867)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sharedtree.com/family/882444|title=SharedTree: Edward Stillingfleet Cayley (1802)|website=www.sharedtree.com|access-date=2016-05-11|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230844/http://www.sharedtree.com/family/882444|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://records.ancestry.com/Elizabeth_Sarah_Stillingfleet_records.ashx?pid=38129150|title=Elizabeth Sarah Stillingfleet 1787-1867 - Ancestry|website=records.ancestry.com|access-date=2016-05-11}}</ref> were both deaf and dumb. His mother was descended from Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. He was a fine cricketer.<ref name="Dutton"/>
On 30 August 1823 he married a cousin, Emma Cayley (c.1797–1848), daughter of Sir George Cayley, the aeronautical baronet. They had three sons: * Edward Stillingfleet Cayley (1824–84), an author, barrister and landowner educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He wrote on the European revolutions of 1848 and the Franco-German war of 1870. In 1872 he married Ellen Louisa Awdry (1845–1903), daughter of Ambrose Awdry of Seend, Wiltshire *George John Cayley (1826–78), a barrister educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (though he never took his degree). He had left-wing tendencies and in 1868 stood as the Working Man's candidate for Scarborough in the general election. He published several pieces of light verse, a book on electoral reform and the working classes, and a popular book about travels in Spain. The frontispiece of this book shows him with a magnificent mid-Victorian beard. He had a reputation as an accomplished metal-worker; in 1862 he and the painter George Frederick Watts designed the challenge shield for a national shooting championship at Wimbledon. He also was an accomplished tennis-player; he helped to develop several types of tennis racket, and wrote an article on the game for the Edinburgh Review in 1875. He had homes at Wydale Hall,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-327434-wydale-hall-snainton-north-yorkshire|title=Wydale Hall - Snainton - North Yorkshire - England {{!}} British Listed Buildings|last=Stuff|first=Good|website=www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk|access-date=2016-05-11}}</ref> Snainton, North Yorkshire and in Westminster. In 1860 he married Mary Anne Frances Wilmot (c.1843–1908); they had three children: ** Hugh Cayley (1861–1924), educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, who lived at Wydale and married Rosa Louisa Violet (died 1915), daughter of Johann Seelig of Hanover **Arthur Cayley (1862–68) **Violet Cayley (born 1865), who took part in amateur theatricals at public theatres in Norfolk *Charles Digby Cayley (1827–44), educated at Eton, who became a midshipman in the Royal Navy, was awarded a medal for his part in activities in the Levant, and drowned with a companion when a squall hit the sailing-boat they were in off Largs, Scotland.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cayleyfamilyhistory.moonfruit.com/#/low-hall-cayleys/4560796811|title=Cayley Family History|website=cayleyfamilyhistory.moonfruit.com|access-date=2016-05-11|archive-date=4 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104180914/http://cayleyfamilyhistory.moonfruit.com/#/low-hall-cayleys/4560796811|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *Christopher Richardson, A letter to Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, Esq., M.P. with two practical suggestions for the amendment of the Currency Act of 1844 (London: T. H. Rice, 1848) *Richard Moorsom, ''A Letter to Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, Esq. M. P. on the Corn Laws and on the Evil Consequences of an Irregular Supply of Foreign Grain'' (London : Simpkin and Marshall, 1840) *H. I. Dutton and J. E. King, “An Economic Exile: Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, 1802–1862", ''History of Political Economy'' Summer 1985 17(2): 203–218.
== External links == *Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, ''[https://archive.org/details/oncommercialeco00caylgoog On Commercial Economy, in Six Essays]'' (1830) *[http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175034804990#view=1up;seq=7 Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, ''Reasons for the Formation of the Agricultural Protection Society: Addressed to the Industrious Classes of the United Kingdom''] (1844) *Edward Stillingfleet Cayley, ''[https://archive.org/details/europeanrevolut00caylgoog The European Revolutions of 1848]'' (1856) * {{Hansard-contribs | mr-edward-cayley | Edward Stillingfleet Cayley }} * [https://books.google.com/books?id=QP4hAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA355 Obituary] in ''The Farmer's Magazine'' (page 354, April 1862 edition).
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{s-new | constituency}} {{s-ttl | title = Member of Parliament for North Riding of Yorkshire | years = 1832 – 1862 | with = William Duncombe to 1841 | with2 = Octavius Duncombe 1841–59 | with3 = William Duncombe (2) from 1859 }} {{s-aft | after = William Morritt | after2 = William Duncombe (2) }} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cayley, Edward Stillingfleet}} Category:1802 births Category:1862 deaths Edward Stillingfleet Category:People educated at Rugby School Category:Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Category:Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Category:UK MPs 1832–1835 Category:UK MPs 1835–1837 Category:UK MPs 1837–1841 Category:UK MPs 1841–1847 Category:UK MPs 1847–1852 Category:UK MPs 1852–1857 Category:UK MPs 1857–1859 Category:UK MPs 1859–1865