Family and Education

b. 14 Feb. 1669, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Charles Dymoke and bro. of Charles Dymoke*.  educ. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1685. unm.  suc. bro. Charles Dymoke 1703.1

Offices Held

Champion of Eng. 1703–d.

Biography

Returned at the by-election for Lincolnshire caused by the death of his elder sibling, Dymoke was commended by one county gentleman as ‘fitter for that station than his brother’. A Tory, he voted in February 1703 against agreeing with the Lords’ amendments to the bill for extending the time for taking the Abjuration. In the second session he was named to a drafting committee for a private estate bill, and twice acted as a teller: on 23 Dec. against referring to a committee a petition opposing a highways bill; and on 18 Feb. 1704 in favour of adjourning all committees. In the third session his only significant activity was an appointment to a drafting committee on a bill to enforce the Ancholme Level Drainage Act, a matter of obvious local importance. In October he was forecast as doubtful for the vote on the Tack, but did vote in favour of the High Tory measure. His stance on this contentious issue probably played an influential part in his defeat at the Lincolnshire election of 1705.2

Dymoke did not stand in 1708, but came top of the county poll two years later. He remained a firm back-bencher, his only nomination of note in the whole Parliament resting with the drafting committee on a Boston waterworks bill. At its outset, the ‘Hanover list’ classed him as a Tory, and he was celebrated as one of the ‘worthy patriots’ who in the first session detected the mismanagements of the previous administration. He was a member of the October Club, but deserted the government in June 1713 by voting against the French commerce bill. Having failed to put up at the general election in 1713, he retired from active politics but carried out his public duties as champion at the coronations of George I and George II. He died a bachelor on 5 or 14 Feb. 1760, shortly before the accession of the George III, and left his estate to a kinsman, Edward Dymoke, a London merchant.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Paula Watson / Perry Gauci

Notes

• 1. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. lv), 1207.
• 2. Lincs AO, Massingberd mss 20/50, Sir William to Burrell Massingberd, 5 Feb. 1705.
• 3. S. Lodge, Scrivelsby, 129; Lincs. Peds. 1207; PCC 145 Lynch.