John Childers

John Walbanke-Childers (27 May 1798 – 8 February 1886) was a British Whig politician.

Family and early life

Walkbanke-Childers was the son of Colonel John Walbanke-Childers (died 1812) and Selena née Gideon (born 1772). He was first educated at Eton College, and then graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1834 with a Master of Arts. In 1824, he married Anne Wood, daughter of Sir Francis Lindley Wood, 2nd Baronet and Anne née Buck, and they had at least five children:

• Charlotte Anne Walbanke-Childers
• Leonard John Walbanke-Childers (1826–1837)
• Hugh Walbanke-Childers (1827–1828)
• Rowland Francis Walbanke-Childers (1830–1855)
• Lucy Walbanke-Childers (c. 1836–1870)

After Anne's death in 1863, he remarried in 1866 to his second cousin, Selena Radford, daughter of Edward Radford and Eliza Diana Walbanke-Childers.

Member of Parliament

Walbanke-Childers was elected a Whig Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire at the 1832 general election and held the seat until 1835, when he was defeated, ranking last out of four candidates in the poll. He returned to Parliament for Malton at a by-election in 1836—caused by the appointment of Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham as Lord Chancellor, in the process being elevated to the peerage—and held the seat until 1846, when he resigned by accepting the office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. However, the next year, he returned to the same seat at the 1847 general election and held the seat until 1852 when he did not seek re-election.

Other roles

Walbanke-Childers was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire and West Riding of Yorkshire, and a Justice of the Peace for the latter county.