Family and Education

b. ?1692, s. of Henry Kelsall of Chester. educ. Westminster under Knipe; Trinity, Camb. 7 Feb. 1708, aged 15, fellow 1714. m., 1da.

Offices Held

Senior clerk, Treasury c.Nov. 1714-d.; commr. of land tax 1735-d.

Biography

Kelsall was at school with the Duke of Newcastle,1 to whom he presumably owed his Treasury post and his return for Chichester in 1719, after which he was brought in by the Government for Cornish boroughs. From the death of William Lowndes in 1724, he was second in command to John Scrope at the Treasury, serving on the committees of the Commons who drew up the finance bills each session.2 He also sent out the letters inviting the principal men on the government side in the Commons to Walpole’s house to hear the King’s speech read before the meeting of Parliament in January 1734, when he was falsely reported to have ‘broke and run away’.3 He did not stand in 1734, and was appointed a commissioner of taxes a year later, still retaining his Treasury post. In June 1761 he attempted ‘to sell his place of commissioner of taxes’ to a relation of Sir Francis Dashwood’s, but Newcastle ‘absolutely refused’ to allow it. On 1 Feb. 1762, feeling himself about to pass ‘into the only more benevolent hands than your Grace’s’, he applied to Newcastle for a ‘small pension’ for his daughter, which was subsequently granted.4 He died a few days later, 10 Feb. 1762.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Add. 32934, f. 139.
• 2. CJ, xx. 261 et passim.
• 3. HMC Egmont Diary, ii. 6.
• 4. Add. 32924, ff. 50-51; 32934, f. 139; 32935, f. 344.