FAZAKERLEY, Nicholas (?1685-1767), of Prescot, Lancs.

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

24 Jan. 1732 - Feb. 1767

Family and Education

b. ?1685, 1st s. of Henry Fazakerley of Fazakerley, Lancs. educ. ?Eton 1698; B.N.C. Oxf. 12 Mar. 1702, aged 17; M. Temple 1700, called 1707. m. 10 Oct. 1732, Anne, da. of Sir Thomas Lutwyche, M.P., 1s. d.v.p. 1da.

Offices Held

Bencher L. Inn 1736, treasurer 1747; counsel to Cambridge Univ. 1738-57; recorder, Preston 1742-67.

Biography

In 1754 Fazakerley, an able and successful lawyer, was re-elected for Preston unopposed. Dupplin’s list, drawn up shortly afterwards, classes him as ‘Tory, against’. Horace Walpole reports that at a meeting of Tories held at the Horn Tavern on 4 Mar. 1755, Fazakerley

informed them that they were to take measures for acting in a body on the Mitchell election: he understood that it was not to be decided by the merits, but was a contest for power between Newcastle and Fox: whoever carried it would be minister: that he for every reason should be for the former.1

His only reported speech during this Parliament was on the prize bill, 4 May 1759, when he expressed doubts about some words in a clause, ‘and therefore’ wrote Hugh Valence Jones to Newcastle, ‘(after he was gone away) Mr. Attorney-General ... did with a compliment to Mr. Fazakerley’s age and understanding move for leaving out those words as not being necessary, and they were accordingly omitted’.2

In Bute’s list of December 1761 he was classed as a Tory; he does not appear in Henry Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries, but he did not vote against. Jenkinson in the autumn of 1763 classed him as ‘doubtful’, but on 29 Nov. 1763 Harris, after listing several prominent lawyers who had spoken against allowing privilege for criminal libel, reported that ‘Fazakerley should have been added to this list’ since he had told a common friend ‘that nothing but a violent cold should have hindered him attending the House, and speaking on the subject’ on the Administration side. During the debate of 17 Feb. 1764 on general warrants Fazakerley drew on his experience of the King’s bench to defend general warrants.3 In Rockingham’s list of July 1765 he was classed as ‘contra’, and in that of November 1766 as ‘Tory’.  He died in February 1767.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

  • 1. Mems. Geo. II, ii. 12.
  • 2. Add. 32890, f. 488.
  • 3. Harris’s ‘Debates’.