Colonel C G Tottenham fought the seat of Wicklow East as a Tory in 1885, losing to the Nationalist William Corbet. Tottenham lost again in 1886, 1895 (when Corbet regained the seat he had lost in the Parnellite split) and an 1895 by-election.
He had previously sat for New Ross (1878-80), as had similarly named ancestors since 1802 in the UK parliament and 1727 in the Irish parliament. In 1731 one ancestor earned the name “Boots”, after riding all night to Dublin to cast a vote ensuring that a budget surplus was held in Ireland and not returned to England.
In 1900 the Irish author Alice M P Cooke dedicated her novel His Laurel Crown to Colonel Tottenham, later writing “Irish Heroes in Red War”, poems about the Irish regiments who fought in the First World War.
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