Edmund Denton
English politician (1676-1714)
Sir Edmund Denton, 1st Baronet (25 October 1676 – 4 May 1714), of Hillesden, Buckinghamshire, was an English Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1698 to 1713.
Biography
Denton was baptized on 25 October 1676, the eldest son of Alexander Denton (1654–1698), MP for Buckingham, 1690–1698, and his wife, Esther (or Hester) Herman, daughter of Nicholas Herman of Middleton Stony. He was a member of a Cumberland family which had been granted the manor of Hillesdon by King Edward IV. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford in 1695, and was admitted at Middle Temple in 1697. He succeeded his father in 1698.
Denton was returned as Member of Parliament for Buckingham at the 1698 English general election. He was the elder brother of Alexander Denton, a judge.
On 12 May 1699, he was created a baronet, of Hillesdon in the County of Buckingham. He continued to represent Buckingham until the 1708 British general election, when he was returned as MP for Buckinghamshire, a seat he held until 1713.
Denton married, with a dowry of £10,000, Mary Rowe, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Anthony Rowe, (c.1641-1704) of Muswell Hill, Middlesex, MP. The marriage was childless. She survived him and remarried to Trevor Hill, 1st Viscount Hillsborough (1693–1742).
“Edmund Denton” enters the record as english politician (1676-1714). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Edmund, Denton and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Edmund Denton” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Edmund, Denton and English provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5339411. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1676, 1714, 1698 and 1713.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Edmund Denton”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Edmund Denton primary sources, Edmund Denton archive and Edmund research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Edmund Denton”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Edmund Denton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.