Family and Education

b. c.1685, o.s. of Thomas Vyner, M.P. (nephew to Sir Robert Vyner, 1st Bt., ld. mayor of London, and h. to his Lincs. and Cheshire estates) by Anne, da. of Sir Francis Leeke, 1st Bt., M.P., of Newark, Notts. m. (1) Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Style, 2nd Bt., M.P., of Wateringbury, Kent, 1s. 2da.; (2) 3 June 1758, Mrs. Delicia de Pipre of Upper Brook St., London, s.p. suc. fa. 1707.

Offices Held

Biography

Vyner inherited the Lincolnshire and Cheshire estates acquired by his great uncle, Charles II’s banker. Returned in 1710 for Grimsby, which his father had represented 1699-1701, he did not stand again till 1721, when he was defeated at Grimsby. In 1724 he was returned as an independent Whig for Lincolnshire, for which he continued to sit without opposition till he retired in 1761. One of the most prolific speakers of his time, he acted consistently against every Administration, though voting against the motion for Walpole’s removal in February 1741. In 1730 the 1st Lord Egmont wrote of him:

This gentleman denied himself to be a Jacobite and insisted he was for nothing but his country; he speaks to figure in the House and with spirit, and always divides with the Tories and does not want for sense nor words in private discourse, in which last he is a little redundant, for he swears like a dragoon.1

He himself defined his position in an election another independent Whig, Joseph Banks, 8 Sept. 1740:

The principles on which we tender our services, setting aside the cant words of the country interest, are independency and uncorruption.2

In 1749-50 the 2nd Lord Egmont in his electoral survey describes Vyner as ‘a whimsical man, full of projects of reformation, especially about the army and militia’. Horace Walpole observed in 1751 that ‘the House generally suffered him to be singular in his opinion’.3 He died 10 Apr. 1777.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. HMC Egmont Diary, i. 32.
• 2. Spalding Gentlemen’s Soc. mss.
• 3. Mems. Geo. II, i. 124.