TUDOR, George (1792-1857), of 28 Park Crescent, Marylebone, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832, ed. D.R. Fisher, 2009
Available from Cambridge University Press

Constituency

Dates

1830 - 1831

Family and Education

b. 1 Aug. 1792, 2nd s. of Henry Tudor (d. 1803), manufacturer, of Sheffield and 2nd w. Elizabeth, da. of John Rimington of Carlton, nr. Barnsley, Yorks. educ. M. Temple 1817, called 1822. m. bef. 1838, Elizabeth Mary, da. of John Jones of London, s.p. d. 24 Dec. 1857.

Offices Held

Biography

Tudor was descended from a Montgomeryshire family, prominent in the affairs of Welshpool, where his father Henry was born in 1738. He was apprenticed in London as a silversmith, but moved to Sheffield, where in 1758 he married Elizabeth Dodworth, the sister-in-law of Thomas Bolsover, the inventor of the silverplating process. Soon afterwards, in partnership with Thomas Leader, he established a silversmith’s business, which became the first to exploit the commercial possibilities of silverplating. He lived in a fine Adam house close to his factory and received a grant of arms in 1775. His first wife died childless in 1781 and two years later he married Elizabeth Rimington, with whom he had two sons, Henry (1788-1864) and George, and four daughters. His second wife died in 1800 and he died, a wealthy man, in 1803.1 Neither of his sons, who were still well short of their majorities, seems to have taken any part in the business, which was broken up in about 1812. Henry Tudor was called to the bar in 1822 but did not practise. He published a Narrative of a Tour in North America (1834), a eulogy of American people and institutions; and Domestic Memoirs of a Christian Family (1848), an extended homily dedicated to the Church Missionary Society, of which he was a prominent member.

George Tudor was also bred to the bar, but did not persevere in that line. At the general election of 1830 he came forward for the venal borough of Barnstaple as the ‘popular candidate’ of the resident freemen, who were at odds with the corporation. In his address he claimed to be ‘entirely free from the spirit and engagement of party’, but he said he would ‘cordially support the government in such measures as may tend to ameliorate the burthens of the people’. Yet at the nomination he was reported to have ‘avowed his principles to be "decidedly ministerial"’. He was returned in second place, at a reputed cost of £8,000.2 The Wellington ministry numbered him among their ‘friends’, but he voted against them in the crucial division on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. He presented Barnstaple petitions in favour of parliamentary reform, 26 Feb., 19 Mar., but he voted against the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. At the ensuing general election when, so he said, he declined an invitation to stand for ‘a considerable borough’ in Norfolk, he offered again for Barnstaple, but found himself in difficulties as a result of his prevarication on reform. Lamely claiming that his vote against the Wellington ministry ‘proved him to be a reformer’ and that he had been a constant attender, he tried to justify his opposition to the ‘highly dangerous’ and ‘revolutionary’ bill, which he felt posed a threat to the monarchy, the church and the Union. His efforts were unavailing, and his defeat at the poll ended his brief, undistinguished and expensive parliamentary career.3

Tudor subsequently moved from Park Crescent to 41 Portman Square and acquired a freehold house and hotel on the Avenue de Matignon in Paris. In 1854 he bought East Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight, the residence built in 1798 by the architect John Nash for his own use.4 He died at Folkestone in December 1857. By his will, dated 1 May 1838, he left all his property to his wife.5 She, who lived until 1880, became in 1861 the second wife of the 3rd Viscount Gort.

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: David R. Fisher

Notes

  • 1. Misc. Gen. et Her. (ser. 3), i. 21-22; Mont. Colls. xxiv. 327-8; J. Hunter, Hallamshire (1869 edn.), 156, 168; J.D. Leader, Recs. Burgery of Sheffield, 393-7, 443, 485; Torrington Diaries ed. C. Bruyn Andrews, ii. 25, 133-4.
  • 2. The Times, 23 July; Western Times, 24, 31 July, 7 Aug. 1830; Trans. Devon Assoc. lxxiii (1941), 190.
  • 3. N. Devon Jnl. 28 Apr., 5 May; The Times, 3, 6 May 1831.
  • 4. VCH Hants, v. 198.
  • 5. Gent. Mag. (1858), i. 227.