William Henry Chicheley Plowden

William Henry Chicheley Plowden FRS (21 April 1787 – 29 March 1880) was an English politician and Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newport, Isle of Wight. Plowden was the son of Richard Plowden, and lived at Ewhurst Park, Basingstoke. He was a director of the Honourable East India Company. He was appointed Second Superintendent of British Trade in China by King William IV on 10December 1833 but in his absence the role passed to John Francis Davis instead. In 1847 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, his candidature certificate saying that he was "an active promoter of the Trigonometrical Surveys of India, and other scientific operations carried on by the East India Company; and generally attached to science and anxious to promote its progress".