Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton, PC (/læbuːˈʃɛər/; 15 August 1798 – 13 July 1869) was a British Whig and Liberal Party politician of the mid-19th century.

Labouchere was born in London into a prominent family,[1] the son of Peter Cesar Labouchere of Hylands, a Dutch-born banker of French Huguenot ancestry who had settled in England, and his wife Dorothy Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Baring.

[1] After beginning the second Melbourne ministry as Master of the Mint, Privy Counsellor, and Vice-President of the Board of Trade (and, later, Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies), Labouchere was raised to a cabinet post, President of the Board of Trade, which he held from 1839 until the Melbourne government fell in 1841.

[2] Labouchere's final cabinet posting came during the first Palmerston ministry, for which he served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1855 to 1858.

[1] His nephew, also Henry Labouchere, inherited part of his fortune, and later became a well-known newspaper editor and politician.