He was appointed
High Sheriff of Devon for 1809–10. Although the Aclands were usually associated with the
Liberal Party, this Acland was a
Tory. He was the
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Devonshire from 1812 to 1818 and again from 1820 to 1831. He then sat for
North Devon from 1837 to 1857. Among his many business interests Acland was the owner of a
schooner called
Lady of St Kilda, which he bought in 1834. It was named for the remote Scottish archipelago he visited with his wife in 1812 when he made the earliest extant sketches of the old
clachan. On the maiden voyage of his new yacht in 1834 he again visited the islands, leaving twenty gold sovereigns with the minister to assist in the building of new houses, which was later matched by their improving Landlord, Lt Col MacLeod of Skye. In 1842 the schooner visited the township of
Melbourne in
Australia, which had been founded in 1835. As a result of that visit, the suburb of
St Kilda was named after the ship, and
Acland Street, one of St Kilda's main commercial centres, was named after Acland. == Philanthropy ==