Family and Education

bap. 20 Jan. 1707, 1st s. of Sir Lyon Pilkington, 4th Bt., by Anne, da. of Sir Michael Wentworth of Woolley, Yorks.  educ. Westminster 1721; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 1725.  suc. fa. June 1716. unm.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Yorks. 1740-1.

Biography

Pilkington was returned for Horsham on the interest of his Yorkshire neighbour and friend Viscount Irwin. He was classed by Dupplin in 1754, as a country gentleman supporting Administration. But Pilkington seems to have been little known to the political leaders. Rockingham, who lived near him in Yorkshire, wrote to Newcastle, 29 Oct. 1761: ‘As to Sir Lionel Pilkington, I have so little acquaintance with him that I could not write to him.’1 He does not appear in Henry Fox’s list of Members in favour of the peace preliminaries, December 1762; but did not vote against them, 9 and 10 Dec.; and was classed by Jenkinson, in the autumn of 1763, as ‘doubtful’. Pilkington voted with Administration on general warrants, 6 Feb. 1764; was classed by Rockingham, July 1765, as ‘doubtful’, but did not vote against the repeal of the Stamp Act. His only other known votes were against the proposal to give £7,000 for London bridge, 15 Mar. 1765,2 and with Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767. Apparently he never spoke in the House. He did not stand again in 1768.

He died 11 Aug. 1778.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

• 1. Add. 32930, ff. 158-9.
• 2. Harris’s ‘Debates.’