Charles Algernon Whitmore

Charles Algernon Whitmore (24 September 1851 – 10 September 1908) was a British barrister and Conservative Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1886 to 1906, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelsea. Early life Whitmore was the son of the county court judge Charles Shaplabd Whitmore QC and his wife Elizabeth Katherine, a sister of Sir Henry Brownrigg, Bt. He was educated at Eton and Balliol, and became a Fellow of All Souls in 1874, before being called to the bar in 1876 at the Inner Temple. Political career At the 1885 general election, Whitmore unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary borough of Chelsea in London, where he lost by 175 votes (2%) to the sitting MP, the Liberal Sir Charles Dilke, Bt. However, in early 1886 Dilke was involved in a high-profile divorce case which grew into a high-profile sex scandal, and at the next general election, in July 1886, Whitmore defeated Dilke with a majority of 176 votes. He served for a time as private secretary to the Home Secretary Henry Matthews, who as a barrister had conducted the cross-examination of Dilke, destroying the latter's career.