Family and Education

b. 1 Dec. 1680, 1st s. of Sir James Bradshaw of Bromborough, Cheshire by Dorothy, da. and h. of John Ellerker of Risby.1 m. Rebecca, da. of Sir Edward Northey, 2da.

Offices Held

Biography

Ellerker Bradshaw’s father acquired by marriage the estate of Risby, three miles from Beverley. After standing unsuccessfully for that borough in 1722 and 1723, Bradshaw was returned for it in 1727, but was unseated on petition, his agents being committed to Newgate by the House of Commons for ‘notorious and scandalous bribery and corruption’. When the agents petitioned for their release,

the House expressed such a high resentment of such scandalous practices that it was therefore unanimously agreed that a bill be brought in for the more effective preventing bribery and corruption in the election of Members to serve in the House,

which passed into law as the Bribery Act of 1729.2 He stood again successfully in 1734, voting with the Government on the Spanish convention in 1739. Defeated in 1741, he died 28 June 1742.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. T. G. Hall, Hist. South Cave, 195.
• 2. CJ, xxi. 259, 265; Hist. Reg. xxxvii. 469.