Family and Education

bap. 21 Mar. 1699, 1st s. of Sir William Ramsden, 2nd Bt., of Byram and Longley Hall by Elizabeth, da. of John Lowther, 1st Visct. Lonsdale, sis. and coh. of Henry, 3rd Visct. Lonsdale. educ. Clare, Camb. 1718. m. (lic. 8 Aug. 1748) Margaret, da. and h. of William Norton of Sawley, Yorks., wid. of Thomas Liddell Bright of Badsworth, Yorks., 2s. 2da. suc. fa. as 3rd Bt. 27 June 1736.

Offices Held

Biography

Ramsden was returned for Appleby by his uncle, the 3rd Viscount Lonsdale, with whose family he was also connected by his sister’s marriage to Sir William Lowther, 2nd Bt.. An independent Whig, he voted with the Government on the civil list arrears in 1729, the excise bill in 1733, and the repeal of the Septennial Act in 1734, but against them on the Spanish convention in 1739, figuring in ministerial lists of absent opposition Members on 21 Nov. 1739 and 18 Nov. 1740.1 He was put down on Pelham’s list for the ballot of 26 Mar. 1742 for the secret committee on Walpole, to which he was not elected, and included in the Cockpit list of October that year. But he voted against the Government on the Hanoverians in the following December and again in 1744, abstaining from the division on them in 1746, when he was classed as ‘doubtful’. At the opening of the next Parliament he was classed as a government supporter. Though he himself remained independent, one of his brothers had a place in the secretary of state’s office, another was a commissioner of the wine licence office, and a third was lieutenant governor of Carlisle and equerry to the King. He did not stand again, and died 10 Apr. 1769.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 66.