AISLABIE, William (c.1699-1781), of Studley Royal, nr. Ripon, Yorks.

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

Constituency

Dates

1 Apr. 1721 - 17 May 1781

Family and Education

b. c.1699, 1st s. of John Aislabie by his 1st w. m.(1) 21 May 1724, Lady Elizabeth Cecil (d. 6 Apr. 1733), da. of John, 6th Earl of Exeter, 2s. 5da.; (2) 6 Sept. 1745 (with £20,000), his step-mother’s niece, Elizabeth, da. of Sir Charles Vernon, 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 1742.

Offices Held

Auditor of the imprest 1738- d.; registrar of consistory ct. of York 1749-d.

Biography

Shortly after coming of age, William Aislabie was returned for the seat vacated by his father’s expulsion from the Commons. He represented Ripon for the next sixty years. Actuated by his father’s resentments, he voted against Walpole’s Government in every recorded division from 1727, except on the place bill in 1740, from which division he was absent, perhaps because he had recently succeeded to the lucrative sinecure procured for him in reversion by his father in 1718. Disappointed that nothing was done for his family on Walpole’s fall, he continued in opposition, speaking and voting against the Hanoverians in 1742 but voting for them in 17441 and 1746. He was classed among Granville’s followers in 1746 and as Opposition in 1747. About 1750 the 2nd Lord Egmont, in his survey of the House of Commons, noted against Ripon:

In Mr. Aislabie, I have always understood that any Administration might have him for a peerage, if it was worth while, or convenient to give it;

on which the Prince of Wales commented: ‘I hope we’ll carry it by something in the army for the younger son’.

He died 17 May 1781.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: A. N. Newman

Notes

  • 1. Hartington to Devonshire, 19 Jan 1744, Devonshire mss.