Philip Oxenden Papillon M.P.

A carte-de-visite portrait of Philip Oxenden Papillon (1826-1899), who served as the Member of Parliament for Colchester from 1859 to 1865.

Philip Oxenden Papillon was born in 1826. According to the 1861 census, he was born at Barham in Kent. He gave as his profession 'M.P., Magistrate, Barrister not practicing, M.A. Oxford.' He was the Member of Parliament (Conservative) for Colchester from 1859 to 1865, hence the town's coat of arms on the plinth in this portrait.

On 16 September 1862, he married Emily Caroline Garnier, daughter of the Very Reverend Thomas Garnier and Lady Caroline Elizabeth Keppel. They lived at Crowhurst Park in Sussex and at Lexden Manor in Essex.

Philip Oxenden Papillon died on 16 August 1899 at Crowhurst Park in Sussex, aged 73. According to the Brighton Gazette (19 August 1899): 'shortly after his luncheon, he was seized with a fit, from which he never rallied.' The following obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph & Courier (18 August 1899): 'At the age of seventy-three the death has occurred suddenly of Mr Philip Oxenden Papillon, of Crowhurst Park, Battle, who from 1859 to 1865 sat in Parliament as one of the Conservative members for Chelmsford [sic]. Mr Papillon, who after taking his degree at Oxford became a member of the Middle Temple, acted for a period of eight years as chairman of the Essex County Sessions, and from 1880 to 1891 was a visitor of convict prisons. He at one time held a commission in the Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles. The deceased gentleman married in 1862 a daughter of the late Dean Garnier, and granddaughter of the fourth Earl of Albemarle.' The Leeds Mercury (9 September 1899) called him 'a lawyer of repute [...] best known as a philanthropist. [...] Though he was a strong Conservative, he was a great reformer of abuses, especially with regard to prisons. Descended from an old Huguenot family, he was a broad-minded Evangelical.'

He left an estate valued at £11,591.

Photographed on 7 May 1861 by Camille Silvy of London.