SKIPWITH, Thomas George (?1735-90), of Newbold Pacey Hall, nr. Warwick

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

29 Mar. 1769 - 1780
1780 - 1784

Family and Education

b. ?1735, 1st s. of Sir Francis Skipwith, 3rd Bt., of Newbold Pacey Hall by Ursula, da. of Thomas Cartwright, M.P., of Aynho, Northants., sis. of William Cartwright.  educ. Rugby 1743; Trinity, Camb. 22 Apr. 1754, aged 18.  m. 13 Sept. 1785, Selina, da. of Hon. George Shirley (s. of Robert, 1st Earl Ferrers), s.p.  suc. fa. as 4th Bt. 6 Dec. 1778.

Offices Held

Biography

On 13 Nov. 1764 Lord Hyde wrote to George Grenville about the by-election in Warwickshire:1 ‘Bromley and Sir F. Skipwith’s son are the two candidates already talked of; both say they will stand by your Administration, both Tories.’ Skipwith withdrew, and did not enter Parliament until he succeeded Bromley in 1769.

He became connected with the Rockingham Whigs, and voted consistently against Grafton and North. At the contested election of 1774 he was head of the poll, but in 1780 refused to stand. ‘The unexpected resignation of ... Sir Thomas Skipwith’, wrote the London Chronicle, ‘is held by the inhabitants in the number of the most paradoxical events that may have happened amongst them.’ And he himself wrote to the Duke of Portland on 5 Sept. 1780:2 ‘I feel myself greatly obliged to you for your advice about Warwickshire, which I should have been happy to have acquiesced in if I could have done, but the treatment I have received rendered it an impossibility.’ He was given a seat at Steyning by Sir John Honywood, 3rd Bt., ‘from friendship and attachment to the Rockinghams’.3

Skipwith voted for Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, but was classed by Robinson as a follower of Fox. He did not vote on Fox’s East India bill, and in January 1784 Robinson classed him as a supporter of Pitt’s Administration. He was a member of the St. Alban’s Tavern group which in February 1784 tried to arrange a union between Pitt and Fox. In Stockdale’s list of 19 Mar. 1784 he was included among the Opposition; and Honywood, who went with Pitt, did not return him in 1784. Skipwith is not known to have spoken in the House.

He died 28 Jan. 1790.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

  • 1. Grenville mss (JM).
  • 2. Portland mss.
  • 3. John Robinson’s survey.