Stephens Lyne-Stephens

Stephens Lyne-Stephens (4 October 1801 – 28 February 1860) was an English Tory politician who represented Barnstaple before the Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will.

His family owned a glass manufacturer in Portugal, established by William Stephens of Cornwall, an illegitimate child born in 1731.

On 15 November 1830, Stephens was one of a group of right wing Tories who voted against the government and ended the rule of the Duke of Wellington.

He bought Lynford Hall near Thetford in 1856, intending to develop its 8,000 acres (32 km2) with mansion house, parkland and lake as a hunting retreat, and commissioned the architect William Burn to refurbish it.

His death in 1860 set off a frenzy of fortune hunters, who went so far as to tamper with their family trees in order to bolster their claims to the estate.