STARKIE, Edmund (c.1693-1773), of Preston and Huntroyde Hall, 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

1754 - 1768

Family and Education

b. c.1693, 2nd s. of Nicholas Starkie of Huntroyde Hall, attorney-gen. of county palatine of Lancaster, by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Col. Gunter of Avebury, Wilts.  educ. I. Temple 1710, called 1718.  unm.

Offices Held

Bencher, I. Temple 1746, reader 1755, treasurer 1758; recorder of Preston 1767-71.

Biography

The Starkies had been settled in Lancashire since the 15th century, and one member of the family had sat in Parliament 1529-36. Edmund Starkie’s great-grandfather served in the parliamentary army during the civil war, yet Starkie himself counted as a Tory and was reputed to be a Jacobite—in 1745 the Young Pretender stayed at his house at Preston.1

Starkie seems to have stood on his own interest at Preston, probably with the support of James Shuttleworth to whom he acted as legal adviser. In 1754 and 1761 he was returned without a contest. He was invariably listed as a Tory; classed as ‘contra’ by Newcastle in November 1762; but was not in Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries. In the autumn of 1763 Jenkinson marked him as a Government supporter. No speech or vote by him in the House is known.

He did not stand again in 1768, and died 12 Aug. 1773.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

  • 1. Private Jnl. of John Byrom (Chetham Soc. xliv), 388.