Family and Education

Offices Held

Cadet, E.I. Co. (Madras) 1775, ensign 1776, lt. 1780, capt. 1789, maj. 1796, lt.-col. 1809, maj.-gen. 1812-d.

Biography

Doveton, whose ancestors had settled in St. Helena in the seventeenth century, had made his fortune in the military service of the East India Company. He purchased a town house in Henrietta Street in 1808 and the Northamptonshire manor house of Everdon, which he vastly improved, the following year, and like his brothers Richard (1754-1823) and John (1768-1847), he remained an influential figure in East India Company circles. In 1812, at his second attempt, he had come in for the venal freeman borough of Lancaster, and he retained his seat in 1820, despite curtailing his personal canvass to cut costs. He is not known to have spoken in debate and made no mark in the House, where he gave measured support to Lord Liverpool’s administration.2 He voted against censuring their handling of the Queen Caroline case, 6 Feb., but to restore the queen’s name to the liturgy, 14 Feb. 1821. He divided for Catholic relief, 28 Feb., and against parliamentary reform, 9 May 1821, 20 Feb. 1823, and generally aligned with government on the revenue and taxation; but he cast wayward votes for the omission of arrears from the duke of Clarence’s award, 18 June 1821, and for abolition of one of the joint-postmasterships, 13 Mar., 2 May 1822.3 He waited repeatedly on the home secretary Peel between February and May 1823 to press Lancaster’s case for retaining the county assizes.4 He died in London in April 1824, ‘aged 64’.5 His will, dated 8 Aug. 1822, was proved under £60,000, 12 May 1824, and executed by his cousin and residuary legatee, the Rev. John Frederick Doveton of Marksbury, Somerset, with power reserved to his brother Sir John Doveton (d. 1847), to whom he left Everdon and £5,000 in government stocks. He also bequeathed £2,000 to his illegitimate son John, a brigade officer in the Madras native infantry, provided £6,000 to be invested on behalf of his sister Caroline, the wife of the Rev. William Philpot, and made other cash bequests totalling over £20,000.6

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: Margaret Escott

Notes

• 1. IGI (Africa); Oxford DNB sub Doveton, John; E. Carter, Dovetons of St. Helena. These sources amend the account of Doveton’s parentage in HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 615.
• 2. HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 227; iii. 615; Morning Chron. 26 Dec. 1818; E.I. Reg. (1819), 189; Lancaster Gazette, 19, 26 Feb., 4, 11 Mar. 1820; Caledonian Mercury, 3 May 1824.
• 3. Black Book (1823), 152.
• 4. HLRO, Thomas Greene mss GRE/4/2-4.
• 5. Ann. Reg. (1824), Chron. p. 218.
• 6. PROB 8/217; 11/1685/284; IR26/993/188.