CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP)

British politician (1805–1889)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 7, 2025
Entity authorityQ8009094 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Edward FitzMaurice (21 March 1805 – 18 June 1889) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Background

FitzMaurice was the son of John FitzMaurice, Viscount Kirkwall, (son of the Hon. Thomas FitzMaurice who was the younger son of John Petty, 1st Earl of Shelburne and younger brother of Prime Minister William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne) and his wife Mary FitzMaurice, 4th Countess of Orkney, daughter of Murrough O'Brien, 1st Marquess of Thomond and Mary O'Brien, 3rd Countess of Orkney. His mother was the Hon. Anna Maria, daughter of John Blaquiere, 1st Baron de Blaquiere, while Thomas FitzMaurice, 5th Earl of Orkney was his elder brother.

Political career

FitzMaurice was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckinghamshire at an unopposed by-election in July 1842. He held the seat until the 1847 general election, when he did not stand for re-election.

Family

FitzMaurice was twice married. He married firstly Hester, daughter of Henry Harford, in 1837. After her death in August 1859 he married secondly Anne Louisa, daughter of John Hatton, in 1870.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP)” is british politician (1805–1889). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, FitzMaurice and Buckinghamshire, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1805, 1889, 1842, 1847—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1805-03-21. For this dossier, William, FitzMaurice and Buckinghamshire is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british politician (1805–1889)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q8009094. VIAF identifies the subject as 240153962. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1805, 1889, 1842 and 1847.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP) primary sources, William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP) archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William FitzMaurice (Buckinghamshire MP)” 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.