CORRANCE, Clement (c.1684-1724), of Parham Hall, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1708 - 1722

Family and Education

b. c.1684, 1st s. of John Corrance of Rendlesham, Suff. and Parham Hall by Elizabeth, da. of Nicholas Vilett, BCL, of Oxford.  educ. Bury St. Edmunds g.s.; St. John’s, Oxf. matric. 11 May 1702, aged 17; I. Temple 1703.  m. 20 Oct. 1705, Mary, da. of Sir Robert Davers, 2nd Bt.*, sis. of Sir Jermyn Davers, 4th Bt.†, 3s. 3da.  suc. fa. 1704.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Dunwich 1705, Orford 1709.2

Biography

Corrance’s father had settled in Suffolk, purchasing the Parham estate in 1687. He himself began to ‘make an interest’ at Orford as early as the winter of 1706–7 and by spending ‘a considerable amount of money’ quickly established a strong position there. In February 1708 the corporation formally agreed to choose him in place of the Tory Sir Edmund Bacon, 4th Bt.*, who had announced his intention to retire at the next election; Bacon’s colleague Sir Edward Turnor* approved the arrangement; and the two men stood together in 1708. Despite the corporation’s ‘pre-engagement’, a third candidate put up, the Whig William Thompson III*, but he was easily defeated. Corrance, who was also busy on the Tory side in other boroughs, had resisted Whig pressure to break his compact with Turnor, and continued to stand by his partner when Thompson petitioned, acting as a teller on 29 Jan. 1709, in the minority, against declaring Thompson elected in Turnor’s place. He voted against the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell in 1710. On 29 Mar. he reported the reasons for the Commons’ disagreements with the Lords’ amendments to the bill explaining the Eddystone Lighthouse Act. He carried a message to the Upper House, and reported the following day that the Lords had agreed to a conference on this issue.3

Returned again with Turnor after another contest in 1710, Corrance was classed as a Tory in an analysis of the Parliament. A teller on the Tory side on 3 Feb. 1711 on a motion that a petition on the Ipswich election had been frivolous and vexatious, he was listed among the ‘Tory patriots’ who opposed the continuation of the war and among the ‘worthy patriots’ who in the 1710–11 session exposed the mismanagements of the old ministry. He was a member of the October Club, but at the same time actively sought government office, resting his hopes on the friendship his father-in-law enjoyed with Robert Harley*. In June 1711 Corrance wrote to Harley, now Lord Treasurer Oxford:

The favourable answer your lordship was pleased to give to Sir Robert Davers makes me presume to trouble you again, and to beg of your lordship, since the place of treasurer of the Ordnance is promised, you would be pleased to bestow on me Mr Edwin’s place in the Exchequer.

The fact that he received only promises from Oxford does not seem to have affected his allegiance to the ministry. He was not particularly active in this Parliament until the session of 1713. Then on 6 May 1713 he moved for leave for a witness to attend the House when the affairs of the commissioners for sick and wounded were to be discussed, a manoeuvre intended to discomfort a Suffolk enemy, William Churchill*, and on 28 May he acted as a teller for an instruction that the bill being drafted for the renewal of the Quakers’ Affirmation Act should not extend to parliamentary elections. On 2 June he reported on a petition from the Jamaican planters and merchants; was again a teller on 11 June, against a bill to free the cargoes of two former prize ships; and voted on 18 June in favour of the French commerce bill. He was a teller twice in 1714: on 14 June, for a motion to instruct the committee on the public accounts bill to reappoint the previous commissioners; and two days later, for an instruction to the committee of privileges to hear the Harwich election. As late as 12 July Davers was still pressing Oxford in vain to convert his many promises to Corrance into something more substantial, ‘when the Parliament is up’. According to the Worsley list he was a Tory who had sometimes voted with the Whigs in the 1713 Parliament and might do so in the next. In another comparative analysis of the two Parliaments he was listed as a Tory pure and simple.4

Corrance was buried at Rougham on 30 Mar. 1724.5

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. Add. 19125, ff. 2–3; Copinger, Suff. Manors, v. 156; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxx. 227–8; PCC 197 Pett; Bury St. Edmunds G.S. List (Suff. Green Bks. xiii), 88.
  • 2. Suff. RO (Ipswich), Dunwich bor. recs. EE6/1144/14; W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee mss Ac.454/1083, John Hooke to Sir Edward Turnor, 28 Sept. 1709.
  • 3. Copinger, 156; Shillinglee mss Ac.454/1049, 1053, 1056, 1061, 859, John Hooke to Turnor, 23 Jan. 1706–7, 23 Oct. 1707, 23 Feb. 1707–8, 8 May 1708, Turnor to mayor of Orford, 17 Feb. 1707–8.
  • 4. Add. 70219, Corrance to Oxford, 10 June 1711, 29 Oct. 1712; 70222, Davers to same, 12 July 1714.
  • 5. Add. 19125, ff. 2–3.