William Tollemache, Lord Huntingtower

Who was William Tollemache, Lord Huntingtower?

William Lionel Felix Tollemache, Lord Huntingtower, styled Hon. William Lionel Felix Tollemache until 1840, was a controversial British nobleman, known for his financial entanglements and extramarital affairs.

William was the child and heir apparent of Lionel Tollemache, 8th Earl of Dysart and his wife Maria. He was described as, about 1861, a "tall, gaunt man, dark", about 5'10" or 6' in height.

Huntingtower was educated at Eton, which he left at the age of seventeen. His father refused to grant him any allowance whatsoever, and he received from his family only a few hundred pounds from his grandmother in the next four years. Unfortunately, his status as the heir of a large estate allowed him to borrow immense sums, and he led so dissipated a life as to accumulate, by 1841, £220,000 of debt. Among these debts was one of over £19,050 to a London diamond dealer, Dobson. Accordingly, he conveyed to Dobson, for a payment of just under £950, his interest in the family estates and eight life insurance policies, to be redeemable by paying his debt of £20,000.

At the cost of £3,500, Huntingtower succeeded in having himself returned as a Member of Parliament for Andover in the election of 1841; but lacking two days of his majority at the time of the election, was replaced by Lord William Paget.