AMBLER, Charles (1721-94), of Stubbings Park, Bisham, Berks.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

14 Feb. 1769 - 1774
24 Apr. 1775 - 1780
1780 - 1784
1784 - 1790

Family and Education

b. 19 Apr. 1721, 2nd s. of Humphrey Ambler, barrister, of Stubbings by his w. Ann Breame. educ. M. Temple 1736, called 1742; L. Inn 1757, bencher 1758; K.C. 1761. m. Anne, da. of Nicholas Paxton, solicitor to the Treasury, s.p.

Offices Held

Solicitor-gen. to the Queen 1771-82; attorney-gen. to the Queen 1782- d.

Biography

Ambler seems to have had an interest at Bramber. It is not clear when or how he acquired it, but on Oct. 1767 Newcastle wrote to Lord Winterton:1 ‘I have been informed that the Marquess of Granby has bought all the Windsor votes in Bramber, of Mr. Ambler; and that my Lord Granby is to ... bring in Mr. Ambler for Bramber at the next election.’ Ambler and Thomas Thoroton, Granby’s two candidates, were defeated but returned on petition. Unlike the rest of the Rutland group who in 1770 went into opposition, Ambler voted with the court throughout this Parliament except on Grenville’s Election Act, 25 Feb. 1774, when he voted in opposition. He made several speeches on different subjects, usually of a legal character.

In 1774 Ambler was deprived of his seat at Bramber by a compromise restricting the Rutland family to one seat which was left to Thoroton, though John Baker in his diary (25 Apr.) calls Ambler a ‘favourite’ of Rutland. No other seat was found for him, but in 1775 he was returned for Newtown after Harcourt Powell had vacated his seat and conveyed his interest to Sir Richard Worsley. Ambler again consistently supported Administration, and in 1780 the English Chronicle wrote that he was ‘one of the heaviest and most steady of Lord North’s phalanx, known by the nickname of Tully Ambler, an ironical title which he does not owe to his abilities’.

At the 1780 general election Ambler was returned unopposed on the Duke of Newcastle’s interest at Boroughbridge. His name does not appear in any of the lists on the important divisions between December 1781 and March 1782, and he did not vote on Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783. He is reported to have spoken only twice during this Parliament: in favour of retaining the Act for regulating marriages, 15 June 1781, and against the custom house reform bill, 21 May 1783.

On 23 Mar. 1784 William Pitt wrote to the Duke of Rutland: ‘The Duke of Newcastle will positively not bring in Ambler; but we will certainly take care of him in the manner you wish.’2 And Ambler was returned for Saltash on the Administration interest. His attendance seems again to have been irregular—his only reported vote was with Administration on the Regency, 16 Dec. 1788. No speech of his in this Parliament is known.

In 1790 he published Reports on Cases in Chancery, 1737-83. He died 28 Feb. 1794.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

  • 1. Add. 32985, f. 345.
  • 2. Corresp. between Charles, Duke of Rutland and Wm. Pitt , 10.