682 William Wells

Constituency : Beverley  1852-57, Peterborough  1868-74

William  unseated  fellow  Liberal  Thomson  Hankey  to  take  the  second  Peterborough  seat.

William  was  the  son  of  a  Navy  captain. He  was  educated  at  Harrow  and  Oxford  and  served  in  the  First  Life  Guards  from  1839  to  1843. He  inherited  landed  estates. He  was  elected  for  Beverley  in  1852  after  coming  third  from  three  Liberals  at  Peterborough  but  defeated  by  a  fellow  Liberal in  1857. William  contested  the  result  on  the  grounds  that  the  victor  didn't  meet  the  property  qualification. He  was  successful  in  getting  the  result  declared  void  but  the  Conservatives  won  the  by-election. Disraeli  described  him  as  "the  most  offensively  conceited  fellow  that  ever  obtruded  himself".

William  retired  at  the  1874  election. He  became  President  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  in  1880. He  was  also  a  patron  of  the  arts,

He  died  in  1889  aged  71.