The Hon. Wenman Clarence Walpole Coke (13 July 1828 – 10 January 1907) was a British soldier and Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

.

Background

Coke was the fourth son of the agricultural reformer Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester

Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation)

Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester , known as Coke of Norfolk, was a British politician and agricultural reformer. Born to Wenman Coke, Member of Parliament for Derby and his wife Elizabeth, Coke was educated at several schools, including Eton College, before undertaking a Grand Tour of...

 ("Coke of Norfolk"), by his second wife Lady Anne Emilia, daughter of William Keppel, 4th Earl of Albemarle

William Keppel, 4th Earl of Albemarle

William Charles Keppel, 4th Earl of Albemarle GCH, PC , briefly styled Viscount Bury between May and October 1772, was a British Whig politician.-Background:...

.

Military and political career

Coke was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Scots Guards

Scots Guards

The Scots Guards is a regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army, whose origins lie in the personal bodyguard of King Charles I of England and Scotland...

 and fought in the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. In 1858 he was returned to Parliament as one of two representatives for Norfolk East

East Norfolk (UK Parliament constituency)

East Norfolk was a parliamentary constituency in the county of Norfolk. It returned two Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1868. Another Eastern division was created in 1885, when its representation was reduced to one member...

, a seat he held until 1865.

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