Family and Education

b. 1752, 1st s. of Thomas Thoroton^† of Screveton by Roosita or Roosilia Drake, illegit. da. of John Manners^†, 3rd Duke of Rutland. educ. ?Eton 1769-71. m. c.1787, Anne, da. and coh. of George Wanley Bowes of Thornton Hall, co. Dur., 4s. suc. fa. 1794.

Offices Held

Page of honour to the King 1764.

Ensign, 2 Ft. Gds. 1772, lt. and capt. 1776 (served in America), capt. and lt.-col. 1782, ret. 1791; lt.-col. commdt. Newark vols. 1803, militia 1808-12.

Clerk of deliveries, Ordnance July 1807-d.

Biography

Thoroton’s father’s attachment to the ducal family of Rutland led to his being considered almost one of the family. Like his father, he sat in Parliament on the Rutland interest. On 3 Dec. 1799, the 5th Duke’s guardian, the Duke of Beaufort, advised him against considering Thornton for a vacant seat for Bramber at that juncture: he could not pay the election expenses and was not accustomed to a London life.1 Yet in 1802 he headed the poll on that interest at Grantham.

Thoroton, a silent Member, voted, like others of his patron’s family, for inquiry into the Prince of Wales’s finances, 4 Mar. 1803. On 21 Mar. he took a month’s leave. Listed a supporter of Pitt in September 1804 and July 1805, he was scarcely an active one. The only other vote of his known in that Parliament was nevertheless against the Grenville ministry’s repeal of Pitt’s Additional Force Act, 30 Apr. 1806. On 2 Mar. 1807 he was a defaulter. In 1807 Thoroton again headed the poll and his attachment to the Portland administration was illustrated when he received an Ordnance place. The Whigs listed him ‘against the Opposition’ in 1810. Yet he does not appear to have mustered for any of the critical divisions surviving for that Parliament. On 23 Mar. 1808 he was granted a fortnight’s leave for private business, and on 1 Jan. 1811 took a month’s leave for illness. His patron shared his indifference to politics and at the dissolution gave up Grantham. Thoroton died in January 1814.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: M. H. Port

Notes

• 1. Rutland mss.