Sir Edward Knatchbull, 9th Baronet, (20 December 1781 – 24 May 1849) was a British Tory politician and baronet of Mersham Hatch in Kent. He emerged as one of the parliamentary leaders of the Ultra-Tory revolt against Catholic Emancipation in 1828 and 1829, and later held office under Sir Robert Peel as Paymaster of the Forces from 1834 to 1835 and as Paymaster General from 1841 to 1845. He sat in the House of Commons for the county of Kent from 1819 to 1831 and for the new Eastern division of Kent from 1832 to 1845. By his second marriage to Fanny Catherine Knight, niece of the novelist Jane Austen, Knatchbull was the father of Edward, 1st Baron Brabourne, who in 1884 published Austen letters that had passed to him after his mother's death.
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Background and education
Knatchbull was born on 20 December 1781, the son of Sir Edward Knatchbull, 8th Baronet, and his wife Mary, daughter and heiress of William Western Hugessen of Provender House in Norton, Kent. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating in 1800, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1802. In 1803 he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1819.