LAMBTON, William (1640-1724), of Lambton, co. Dur.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Family and Education

bap. 21 June 1640, 1st s. of Henry Lambton of Lambton by Mary, da. of Sir Alexander Davison of Blakiston. educ. Queen’s, Oxf. 1659. unm. suc. fa. 1693.1

Offices Held

Commr. for carriage of coals, port of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1679; commr. for assessment co. Dur. 1689-90, v.-adm. ?1690-?d., j.p. and dep. lt. by 1701-d.2

Biography

Lambton’s family had held the property from which they took their name since at least the middle of the 14th century. His grandfather, a commissioner of array, was killed at Marston Moor, and his father, also a Royalist, compounded for the estate, including the valuable collieries. He supported the enfranchisement of Durham, but was appointed attorney-general to Bishop Crew and deputy recorder of Newcastle under the new charter. Lambton himself became the first of the family to enter Parliament when he was elected for the county in 1685 as a Tory without a contest. A moderately active Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed to five committees, including those on the bills to prevent theft and rapine on the northern borders, to continue expiring laws, and to relieve insolvent debtors.3

Lambton’s father returned the same evasive answer as (Sir) Ralph Delaval on the repeal of the Tests and Penal Laws, and was removed from local office in 1688. But Lambton himself was re-elected to the abortive Parliament, and again to the Convention a month later without opposition. According to Anthony Rowe he voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant. An inactive Member, he was named to nine committees, of which the most important was for removing Papists from the metropolitan area (20 Mar.). He remained a Tory under William III, though he signed the Association in 1696. He died in 1724, and was succeeded by his nephew Henry, who sat for the city of Durham as a Whig from 1734 till his death in 1761.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Gillian Hampson

Notes

  • 1. Surtees, Dur. ii. 174.
  • 2. Cal. Treas. Bks. v. 1205; J. Spearman, Inquiry into Ancient and Present State of Dur. (1729), 33-34.
  • 3. Surtees, ii. 174-5; Cal. Comm. Comp. 987; HMC Le Fleming, 210; CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 241; The Gen. n.s. xxii. 21; Hutchinson, Dur. i. 549.
  • 4. C. Sharp, Parl. Rep. Dur. 17; Spearman, 35.