GUNDRY, Nathaniel (1701-54), of Uddens, in Chalbury, Dorset, and Maidenhayne, in Musbury, Devon.

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

Constituency

Dates

1741 - May 1750

Family and Education

bap. 2 Apr. 1701,1 o.s. of Nathaniel Gundry, merchant and twice mayor of Lyme Regis, Dorset by Elizabeth, o. da. and h. of Thomas Warren of Maidenhayne. educ. M. Temple 1720, called 1725; L. Inn 1729. m. Mary Kelloway, 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 1736.

Offices Held

K.C. 1742; justice of common pleas 1750-d.

Biography

Nathaniel Gundry, of a Dorset family, was returned unopposed as a Whig for Dorchester in 1741 and 1747 together with the Tory John Browne, also a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn. On entering Parliament he sided with the Opposition, voting against Walpole’s nominee for chairman of the elections committee in December 1741. Presumably for these services, he was made K.C. after Walpole’s fall in 1742;2 but he continued to vote against the new Administration on the Hanoverians, 1742 and 1744, and was classed as ‘against’ in 1747. The 2nd Lord Egmont, in a list of future office-holders on Frederick’s accession, included him as a possible chancellor to the Queen or the Prince with the comment ‘good character but not very able.’ In putting forward candidates for vacancies on the bench in 1750, Hardwicke described him to Newcastle (18 May), for the information of the King at Hanover, as having

sometimes in the House of Commons acted with the Opposition, but I really believe he has never attached himself to them and during this Parliament he has attended very little. To do him justice he is certainly a Whig and thoroughly well affected to the King and his Government.

Pelham also wrote to Newcastle (25 May) that Gundry

has without a rival the voice of Westminster Hall ... I talked very frankly to him on his parliamentary behaviour; he said when he first came into Parliament he was without views and very ignorant of the world, that he therefore was led to vote against the then ministry, but he hoped I had observed he had not entered into any opposition of late, that he had a detestation of the Tories, and ever should have, and a thorough contempt for the present Opposition under any other description. I touched him upon the most tender point to that [i.e. the Prince of Wales]; he answered explicitly that he never had anything to do there in his life, nor ever would.3

On appointment as a high court judge Gundry vacated his seat, dying of gaol fever on circuit 30 Mar. 1754.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

  • 1. Som. & Dorset. N. & Q. xii. 129-31.
  • 2. Hanbury Williams, Works, iii. 37.
  • 3. Add. 32720, ff. 355, 391.