Henry Handcock


Henry Handcock was an Irish Conservative politician.
The youngest son of Richard Hancock and Margaret née Harris, Handcock was at some point a captain in the 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot.
Handcock was elected as the Member of Parliament for Athlone at a by-election in 1856—caused by the appointment of the sitting MP, William Keogh, as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas—but lost the seat less than a year later at the 1857 general election, when he was beaten by the Independent Irish Party candidate, John Ennis.
Handcock died little under a year later while hunting tigers in India. A report on his death, published by The Morning Chronicle, described the incident, where "the enraged animal" caused such injuries that he died within an hour, as the "most melancholy circumstances".