Family and Education

b. ?1756, o.s. of John Pardoe, dir. E.I. Co. 1765-8, of 16 Size Lane, London and Low Layton by Anne, sis. of Lt.-Gen. Edward Urmston.1 educ. Newcome’s Acad. Hackney; Trinity Coll. Camb. 18 Apr. 1775, aged 18; L. Inn 1774, called 1779. m. 23 Feb. 1786, Jane, da. of Thomas Oliver of Layton, Essex, 4s. 1da.

Offices Held

Biography

Pardoe’s father, a wealthy merchant, purchased his seats in Parliament for him on the Treasury interest. In 1790, having unsuccessfully contested Sudbury, he transferred to West Looe, whose patron John Buller returned friends of government. Pardoe continued to give, it seems, a silent support to administration, but there is no sign of parliamentary activity, apart from his being listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791. On 19 Apr. 1796 his wife died of ‘a rheumatic spasm’, a fortnight after giving birth to her fifth child. Pardoe was ‘overwhelmed’ with ‘melancholy’ and ‘blew out his brains with a pistol’ during his wife’s funeral, which he had been persuaded not to attend, on 26 Apr., aged 39. He died v.p. and intestate.2

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

• 1. John Pardoe senior died at Low Layton in October 1798; his wid. Anne was confusedly described by the Gent. Mag. in her obit. (November 1799) as the ‘sister to the wife of the late Gen. Urmston and to the wife of the late Jos. Eyre, chief clerk of Christ’s Hospital’. But Gen. Urmston, 1st Ft. Gds. who d. 21 Dec. 1778 married Leonora, 4th da. of Allen, 1st Earl Bathurst (and she had no sister married to an Eyre).
• 2. Gent. Mag. (1796), i. 349, 358, 441; PCC admon. act bk. Mdx. June 1796; V. L. Oliver, Antigua , iii. 447; Morning Chron. 2 May 1796.