BOSCAWEN, Hugh (d.1795), of Windlesham, Surr.

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

1774 - 1790

Family and Education

Illegit. s. of Hugh, 2nd Visct. Falmouth. m. Anne, 3s. 1da.

Offices Held

Clerk of the charge to the yeomen of the guard 1772- d.; knight marshal of the Household and marshal of the Marshalsea 1792- d.

Biography

All Boscawen’s recorded votes were with Administration, except in the division on economical reform, 8 Mar. 1780. He voted for Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783; did not vote on Fox’s East India bill; and Robinson wrote about him in his survey for the general election of 1784: ‘Mr. Boscawen may be made steady.’ In Stockdale’s list of 19 Mar. he appears as a supporter of Pitt.

From his father (who died 4 Feb. 1782) he inherited £30,000, the manor of St. Antony in Cornwall, and the Boscawen interest at St. Mawes. This he apparently sold to the Marquess of Buckingham, who controlled the other seat in the borough. Buckingham wrote to W. W. Grenville on 7 June 1788 that Boscawen’s tenure of St. Mawes expired ‘with the Parliament’ where he had ‘hitherto remained ... for the object of a reversion [to the office of knight marshal] which Pitt has given him’.1 In 1789 Boscawen voted with Pitt over the Regency, and in 1790 ‘relinquished’ his seat.2 There is no record of his having spoken in the House.

He died 4 Sept. 1795.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

  • 1. HMC Fortescue, iii. 334.
  • 2. Gent. Mag. 1795, p. 795.