691 Sir Charles Wingfield

Constituency : Gravesend 1868-74

Charles  was  the  first  MP  for  the  new  seat  of  Gravesend.

Charles  was  the  son  of  a  judge  and  MP  for  Bodmin.  Richard  Wingfield-Baker  MP  for  Essex  South  was  his  older  half-brother. He  worked in  the  Bengal  Civil  Service  from  1840  to  1866. He  was  knighted  in  1864. There  is  a  park  named  in  his  honour  in  Lucknow.

Charles's  interventions  were  usually  concerned  with  India. In  1870  he said  experience  had  convinced  him  "that  the  moderate  use  of  this  drug ( opium ) is  not  more  prejudicial  or  injurious  than  the  moderate  use  of  alcoholic  drinks".

Charles  was  pro-Russian. In  1873  he  declared  Russia's  annexation  of  Khiva  was  "in  the  interests  of  humanity"  and  would  restore  "this  degraded  population  to  order  and  civilisation".
Charles  was  defeated  by  the  Tories  in  1874.

He  died  in  1892  aged  71.