Family and Education

b. c.1691, s. of Richard West, London merchant. educ. I. Temple 1708, called 1714, bencher 1719. m. Apr. 1714, Elizabeth, da. of Gilbert Burnet, bp. of Salisbury, 1s. 1da.

Offices Held

K.C. 1717; counsel to board of Trade 1724; ld. chancellor [I] 1725-d.

Biography

The author of a pamphlet in support of the peerage bill in 1719,1 West was returned as a Whig for Grampound in 1721 and for Bodmin in 1722. On 26 Oct. 1722 he supported a motion to increase the army by 4,000 men. A month later, and again in May 1723, he spoke against a bill for raising £100,000 from Papists. In 1724 he introduced the bill regulating the elections in the city of London and curbing the power of the common council.2 He was one of the managers of the trial of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield in 1725, soon after which he was appointed lord chancellor of Ireland. Falling ill ‘with a great cold and fever’ in November 1726, he died on 3 Dec., leaving ‘little more than would answer his debts on both sides of the water’. His family were granted a pension.3

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. An Inquiry into the Manner of creating Peers. Knatchbull Diary, 16 Dec. 1724.
• 2. Knatchbull Diary, 16 Dec. 1724.
• 3. Letters of Hugh Boulter, i. 105-6, 123, 145.