Sir Hervey Elwes, 2nd Baronet
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Sir Hervey Elwes, 2nd Baronet (c. 1683–1763), of Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk, was a British landowner and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1706 and 1722. He had the reputation of being an extreme miser.
Elwes was baptized in July 1683, the eldest son of Gervase Elwes of Stoke College and his wife Isabella Hervey, daughter of Sir Thomas Hervey of Ickworth, Suffolk. His father died in about 1687.[1] As a child, he suffered from consumption so that he had a poor constitution and a thin spare body. He was timid, and extremely diffident, had no friends and no interests apart from hoarding up his money and partridge setting.[2] He was admitted at Queens' College, Cambridge on 22 June 1702.[3] His grandfather Sir Gervase Elwes, 1st Baronet died on 11 April 1706 and he succeeded to the baronetcy and estate. The estate was so debt-ridden that his uncle, John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, advised him either to sell his lands or marry a rich wife. In the event he never married nor sold the estates but lived a life of abject penury.[2]