Family and Education

b. c.1680, 1st s. of Bennet Sherard*.  educ. M. Temple 1696.  m. 12 Mar. 1703, Anne (d. 1750), da. and h. of Nicholas Pedley (bro. of John Pedley*) of Washingley, Hunts., 6s. 8da.  suc. fa. 1701; cos. Bennet (3rd Baron Sherard [I]*), 1st Earl of Harborough, as 2nd Earl 16 Oct. 1732.

Offices Held

Gent. privy chamber 1705–27; ld. lt. Rutland 1733–d.1

Biography

In 1699 Philip Sherard’s father appears to have settled on him the manor of Hellewell, part of the Sherard family’s Rutland estate since the reign of Henry VII, but nothing more is known of him before his election for the county in 1708. He was classed as a Whig in a list of the 1708 Parliament and was considered by Lord Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*) as a Whig ‘gain’ for the government. In 1709 he voted in favour of the naturalization of the Palatines, and in the same session acted twice as teller on minor non-political questions. He voted for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell in 1710.2

Sherard lost his seat at the 1710 election mainly through the machinations of the Earl of Nottingham (Daniel Finch†) which included distribution of a printed ‘address’ to Sherard’s ‘neighbours and countrymen’ in which the Earl vilified Sherard’s vote for the Palatines as giving ‘strangers’ the bread ‘of our own poor’. The Earl also appears to have connived in spreading rumours of marital discord between Sherard and his wife, ‘that ’twill soon end in separation’. Whatever its basis, the latter report was apparently without foundation. Sherard did not attempt to regain his seat until 1722, when he was defeated in a three-cornered contest. His succession to his second cousin’s earldom and country seat in 1732 was followed shortly afterwards by his appointment to the Rutland lord lieutenancy. He died at Stapleford, Leicestershire, on 20 July 1750, but was buried near his original seat at Whissendine.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Andrew A. Hanham

Notes

• 1. Info. from Prof. R. O. Bucholz; IGI, Rutland.
• 2. VCH Rutland, ii. 159.
• 3. Leics. RO, Finch mss, box 4969, Nottingham to ‘neighbours and countrymen’, n.d. [1710]; Northants. RO, Isham mss IC 2949, Nottingham to Sir Justinian Isham, 4th Bt.*, 3 Oct. 1710.