Frederick Halsey

Who was Frederick Halsey?

Sir Thomas Frederick Halsey, 1st Baronet PC was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1874 to 1906.

Halsey came from one of the most prominent families of Hertfordshire, whose seat was at Gaddesden Place, near Hemel Hempstead. He was the son of Thomas Plumer Halsey and his wife Frederica Johnston, daughter of General F. Johnston. His father was Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire from 1847 until he was drowned with his wife and his younger son in the shipwreck of the steamer Ercolano in the Gulf of Genoa on 24 April 1854. Frederick Halsey was at Eton at the time. He progressed from there to Christ Church, Oxford. He rowed in the losing Oxford eight in the Boat Race in 1860.

After graduating in 1861, Halsey took up the life of a county notable in Hertfordshire, obtaining a commission in the North Hertfordshire Yeomanry and becoming a Justice of the Peace. He was chairman of the Gaddesden School Board.

At the 1874 general election Halsey was elected Conservative MP for Hertfordshire and served in the post until 1885, when the constituencies were reorganised under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. the 1885 general election he was elected for Watford. He was also an alderman of Hertfordshire County Council from 1888, and was particularly interested in the Hertfordshire Constabulary. He served as deputy chairman of the St Albans Quarter Sessions from 1889 to 1908. In 1899 he was elected Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Orders Committee, and for service in this role was appointed to the Privy Council after the accession of King Edward VII on 24 January 1901, entitling him to the style "The Right Honourable". Halsey held his seat until 1906, when he lost to the Liberal candidate Nathaniel Micklem.