The son was born in Princes Street, Lothbury, in May 1770. He successfully engaged in mercantile pursuits, and became finally senior partner of Denison, Heywood, & Kennard, bankers, in Lombard Street. He sat as a whig for Camelford 1796–1802, was elected for Kingston-upon-Hull 1806, and was member for Surrey from 1818 till his death, which took place in Pall Mall on 2 Aug. 1849.
Denison very much increased his father's large fortune. He had extensive landed estates in Surrey and Yorkshire, as well as great investments in the funds. He was worth, it is computed, 2,300,000l. Dying unmarried he left his wealth (except 500l. given in charity and some legacies) to his nephew, Lord Albert Conyngham, on condition that he took the name of Denison only [see Denison, Albert, first Baron Londesborough].
Denison wrote a patriotic poem of some merit on Napoleon's threatened invasion of 1803.
[Gent. Mag. 1806, p. 1181, October 1849, p. 422; Taylor's Leeds Worthies, 1845; Burke's Landed Gentry; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
DENISON, Sir WILLIAM THOMAS (1804–1871), lieutenant-general, colonial and Indian governor, third son of John Denison, esq., of Ossington, Nottinghamshire [see Denison, John Evelyn, and Denison, Edward, D.D.], was born in London on 3 May 1804. He was educated at a private school at Sunbury, at Eton—where he spent four years—and under a private tutor, the Rev. C. Drury. In February 1819 he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and passed for the royal engineers in 1823, but did not receive his commission until 1826, spending a portion of the interval in working at the Ordnance Survey. After going through the usual course of instruction at Chatham he was sent in 1827 to Canada, where during the following four years he was employed with a company of sappers in the construction of the Rideau Canal, having his headquarters at Ottawa, now the capital of Canada. While engaged upon this duty he made a series of experiments for the purpose of testing the strength of the various kinds of American timber, the results of which he subsequently communicated to the Institute of Civil Engineers, which voted him the Telford medal, and appointed him an associate. Returning to England at the end of 1831, he was for a time quartered at Woolwich. In February 1833 he was appointed instructor of the engineer cadets at Chatham, where he established a small observatory. In the summer of 1835 he was appointed a member of the corporation boundary commission. In the following year he was employed at Greenwich in making observations with Ramsden's zenith sector. In the autumn of 1837 he was placed in charge of the works at Woolwich dockyard, and from that time until June 1846, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land, he was employed under the admiralty, first at Woolwich and afterwards at Portsmouth, visiting in the summer of 1842 Bermuda, where he was sent to inspect the admiralty works in progress there. He was also a member of a government commission upon the health of towns. During the whole of this period he paid considerable attention to scientific and professional studies. While serving at Woolwich in 1837 he originated the publication of the professional papers of the royal engineers, which he edited until his departure for Van Diemen's Land. In 1846, for his services under the admiralty, he was knighted on the recommendation of Lord Auckland, the first lord.
The appointment of Denison, then a captain of engineers, to the government of Van Diemen's Land was due to Sir John Burgoyne, who had been requested by the colonial secretary, Mr. Gladstone, to nominate an officer of engineers qualified for the post. Owing, however, to a change of government, the appointment was actually made by Lord Grey. Denison reached Hobart Town early in 1847. The colony was in a somewhat disorganised condition. There was very little money in the colonial treasury, and a good many debts. There had been a serious difference of opinion between the late lieutenant-governor, Sir Eardley Wilmot, and the unofficial members of the Legislative Council on the question of the transportation of convicts to Van Diemen's Land. The system of transportation, though abandoned in New South Wales, was still in force in Van Diemen's Land. There was an erroneous impression at the colonial office, that the number of convicts in the colony was largely in excess of the demand for their labour, the fact being that every available convict had been hired, and that there was a deficiency of hands to carry on the ordinary government work. Denison was soon able to convince many of the settlers who had been opposed to transportation that a hasty discontinuance of that system would be injurious to their interests. The system was, however, finally abolished in 1853.
The differences between the late lieutenant-governor and the unofficial members of the council had culminated in the resignation of six out of eight of the latter. The vacant seats had been filled up, but the home government, not approving of the action of
