Sir Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Baronet, FRS (12 January 1786 – 5 May 1855) was a British Conservative politician, noted for his staunch high church views.
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Family
He was the son of Sir Hugh Inglis, a minor politician and MP for Ashburton (1802–1806). In 1807 he married Mary Briscoe who was the daughter of John Briscoe and Susanna Harriot Hope whose marriage had ended in scandal.
Political career
Robert succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1820, and served as MP for Dundalk 1824–1826, Ripon 1828–1829 and Oxford University from 1829 to 1854. He was appointed High Sheriff of Bedfordshire for 1824.
Inglis was strongly opposed to measures which, in his view, weakened the Anglican Church. He spoke strongly and successfully against the Catholic Relief Bill of 1847, claiming it would, if passed, weaken England’s Protestantism and allow Catholicism to grow (Cork Examiner, April 1847). When the leading Tory MP Robert Peel forced a by-election at Oxford University in 1829 on the issue of Catholic Emancipation, Inglis resigned from Ripon and with support from Ultra-Tories defeated Peel.
When Robert Grant, MP for Inverness Burghs, petitioned for Jewish relief in 1830, Inglis was violently opposed. Inglis alleged that the Jews were an alien people, with no allegiance to England, and that to admit Jews to parliament would "separate Christianity itself from the State." He also alleged that if they were admitted to parliament "within seven years...Parliamentary Reform would be carried." Inglis was joined in his public opposition by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Goulburn, and the Solicitor General and future Lord Chancellor, Sir Edward Sugden. Although the Jews were not emancipated fully until 1858, Parliamentary Reform occurred in 1832, just two years later. Inglis also likened Buddhism to "idolatry" in connection with the British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during a debate over the relationship of "Buddhist priests" to the British colonial government in 1852.