EVANS, George, 1st Baron Carbery [I] (c.1680-1749), of Caharas, co. Limerick, and Laxton, Northants.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1 June 1715 - 1722
16 Mar. 1724 - 1727

Family and Education

b. c.1680, 1st s. of George Evans, P.C. [I], M.P. [I], of Bulgaden Hall, co. Limerick by Mary, da. of John Eyre of Eyre Court, co. Galway. m. 4 May 1703, Anne, da. of William Stafford of Blatherwycke, Northants., yr. sis. and coh. of William Stafford of Blatherwycke. cr. Baron Carbery [I] 9 May 1715; suc. fa. 1720.

Offices Held

M.P. [I] 1713-14

Gov. Limerick castle, 1714-27, 1740-d.; P.C. [I] 1715.

Biography

According to the 1st Lord Egmont, Carbery’s grandfather was a sergeant in Cromwell’s army, who set up as a cobbler in co. Cork:

but being a cunning, industrious and saving man, by buying army debentures and other opportunities that offered, laid the foundation of a large estate, which his son and grandson, the present lord, by parsimony have improved to near £6,000 a year.1

Carbery himself acquired the Laxton estate in England by marriage and had connexions with Wiltshire through his mother’s family. In 1715 he and Charles Allanson were sent down to Westbury by Lord Cowper and other leading Whigs to challenge Lord Abingdon’s Tory interest there. Though unsuccessful at the election, on petition he and Allanson were declared elected by the Whig House of Commons. In Parliament he voted for the septennial bill in 1716 and the peerage bill in December 1719, but was absent on the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, January 1719. In 1722 he was again defeated but this time, though ‘the merits of that election [were] undoubtedly against’ his opponent, his petition failed on a technical point.2 However, one of the sitting Members having elected to sit for Middlesex, Carbery came in at the ensuing by-election, despite a further petition. He did not stand again, dying 28 Aug. 1749.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

  • 1. HMC Egmont Diary, ii. 388.
  • 2. Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 68, n.d.