WHITMORE, Thomas (1711-73), of Apley, nr. Bridgnorth, Salop.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1734 - 1754

Family and Education

b. 21 Dec. 1711, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of William Whitmore of Apley and bro. of William Whitmore. m. Anne, da. of Sir Jonathan Cope, 1st Bt., of Bruern Abbey, Oxon., 3da. suc. fa. 1725; cos. Catherine Pope 1754. K.B. 28 May 1744.

Offices Held

Recorder, Bridgnorth 1735-d.

Biography

Returned on the family interest for Bridgnorth soon after coming of age, Whitmore spoke against a place bill in 1735, but voted against the Spanish convention in 1739, having been ‘got within the last hour by the Prince’ who ‘was the whole while in the House, applauding all abuse and canvassing the Members’.1 He did not vote on the place bill in 1740. In the next Parliament he was put down in the Cockpit list of October 1742 as ‘Pelham’, voted with the Administration in all recorded divisions, and was classed in 1746 as Old Whig. During the 1745 rebellion he enlisted in Lord Powis’s (H. A. Herbert) regiment of militia.2 He was one of the group of Shropshire Whigs led by Lord Powis, who in 1748 unsuccessfully applied to the Duke of Newcastle on Whitmore’s behalf for the office of governor of North Carolina for his younger brother George.3 In 1753 Whitmore himself wrote to Newcastle asking that he would place his brother ‘in some post, as he has nothing but the small younger brother’s fortune to live upon’.4 After his retirement from Parliament in 1754 the struggle for George’s preferment was brought to a successful conclusion by his other brother William.5 He died 15 Apr. 1773.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. B. Lawson

Notes

  • 1. Harley Diary, 22 Apr. 1735; Coxe, Walpole, iii. 609.
  • 2. Owen and Blakeway, Hist. Shrewsbury, i. 507.
  • 3. 7 June 1748, Add. 32715, f. 174.
  • 4. 1 Apr. 1753, Add. 32731, f. 324.
  • 5. Namier, Structure, 249-52.