Family and Education

b. 16 Sept. 1748, 3rd s. of Joseph Damer^†, 1st Earl of Dorchester, and bro. of Hon. George Damer*. educ. Eton 1755-65; Trinity Coll. Camb. 1766; Grand Tour. m. 16 Apr. 1778, Williamsa, da. of Capt. William Janssen of Hanover Square, Mdx., s.p.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Dorset 1785-6.

Capt. Dorset yeomanry 1795, lt.-col. 1798, 1803-d.

Biography

Damer, who joined the Whig Club on 3 Feb. 1786 like his elder brother, followed his parliamentary patron Earl Fitzwilliam’s line in politics and at first continued to oppose Pitt after 1790. He voted with opposition on Grey’s Oczakov resolutions, 12 Apr. 1791, and on the Russian armament, 1 Mar. 1792. He was listed a supporter of repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791. He further voted, but ‘against his sentiments’, for Fox’s amendment to the address, 13 Dec. 1792.1 He was listed a Portland Whig that month and thought of for Windham’s ‘third party’ in February 1793. He subsequently joined the Portland Whigs in giving a general support to government during the war. Fox could not persuade him to support his censure of the imperial loan, 14 Dec. 1796,2 but as a friend of Fitzwilliam he voted with opposition on the state of Ireland, 3 Mar. 1797, 14 and 22 June 1798. He had supported government on the assessed taxes, 4 Jan. 1798. He is not known to have spoken in the House. Ill health seems to have affected his attendance and determined his retirement before the election of 1802. He wrote to his patron, 21 Feb. 1802, thanking him for his ‘goodness and civility’ in bringing him into Parliament for Peterborough, and hoped that he might ‘with care’, recover his health.3 He died 28 May 1807 of election fever, having ‘overheated himself ... in the zeal of his support of Bankes’ in the contest for Dorset.4

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

• 1. Malmesbury Diaries, ii. 476.
• 2. Fitzwilliam mss, X516/32, Fox to Fitzwilliam, 10 Dec. [1796].
• 3. Ibid. box 60.
• 4. Fortescue mss, Fremantle to Grenville, 30 May 1807.