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Michael Biddulph, 1st Baron BiddulphJPDL (17 February 1834 – 6 April 1923), was a British banker and Liberal, later Liberal Unionist, Member of Parliament (MP).
Biddulph was the eldest son of Robert Biddulph and his wife Elizabeth (née Palmer), daughter of George Palmer MP, of Nazeing Park in Essex. Among his siblings was Sir Robert Biddulph, a General in the Army, Colonel John Biddulph, who served in India, and George Tournay Biddulph, who also worked for the family banking firm. After his mother's death, his father married his second cousin, Lady Sarah Wilfreda Palmer, daughter of Earl Selborne and they lived at Douglas House, Petersham.[1][2]
He was a partner in the London banking firm of Cocks, Biddulph and Co. In 1865 he was elected to the House of Commons for Herefordshire, a seat he held until 1885, and then represented Ross between 1886 and 1900. At first a Liberal, he disagreed with William Ewart Gladstone on the issue of Irish Home Rule and sat as a Liberal Unionist after 1886. Biddulph was also a Justice of the Peace for Herefordshire and Gloucestershire and served as Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire. In 1903 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Biddulph, of Ledbury in the County of Hereford.[4]
On 9 August 1864, Biddulph married, firstly, Adelaide Georgiana Peel (d. 1872), the second daughter of General Jonathan Peel MP (fifth son Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet) and Lady Alicia Jane Kennedy (a daughter of Archibald Kennedy, 1st Marquess of Ailsa), in 1864. They had two sons and three daughters, including:[3]
After her death in 1872 he married, secondly, Lady Elizabeth Philippa (née Yorke) Adeane, widow of Henry John Adeane MP for Cambridgeshire, in 1877. Lady Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, and Susan Liddell (sixth daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth). They had no children.[3]
Lady Biddulh died on 13 January 1916. Lord Biddulph died in April 1923, aged 89, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son from his first marriage, John. Lady Biddulph died in 1916, aged 81.[3]