Edward Pleydell-Bouverie PC, FRS (26 April 1818 – 16 December 1889), styled The Honourable from 1828, was a British Liberal politician. He was a member of Lord Palmerston's first administration as Paymaster-General and Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 1855 and as President of the Poor Law Board between 1855 and 1858. Background and education Pleydell-Bouverie was the second son of William Pleydell-Bouverie, 3rd Earl of Radnor, by his second wife, Anne Judith, third daughter of Sir Henry St John-Mildmay, 3rd Baronet. The family homes were at Longford Castle in Wiltshire and Coleshill House in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 4th Earl of Radnor, was his elder brother. He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as a Master of Arts in 1838. Like a number of his kinsmen, he became an officer in the part-time Royal Berkshire Militia, being commissioned as a captain on 23 February 1838 and was still listed in 1852. He was a précis writer to Lord Palmerston from January to June 1840 before he was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, on 27 January 1843. Political career In 1844 Pleydell-Bouverie was returned to Parliament for Kilmarnock Burghs, a constituency he represented until 1874. He served as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in Lord John Russell's first administration from July 1850 to March 1852, and from April 1853 to March 1855 he was Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons, while Lord Aberdeen was prime minister. In March 1855, when Lord Palmerston became premier, Pleydell-Bouverie was made Paymaster-General and Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and sworn of the Privy Council. In August of the same year he was transferred to the Presidency of the Poor Law Board, a position he held until 1858. However, he was never a member of the cabinet. In 1857 he was appointed one of the committee of the Council on Education. He was Second Church Estate Commissioner from August 1859 to November 1865, and from 1869 he was one of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England. Though a staunch liberal, Pleydell-Bouverie belonged to the old whig school, and during his last years in parliament often found himself in disagreement with the policies of Liberal prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone. In 1872, when a charge of evasion of the law was made against Gladstone in connection with the appointment he made to the rectory of