Family and Education

b. c.1686, 1st s. of Sir William Strickland, 3rd Bt.*  educ. travelled abroad (Holland) 1703.  m. settlement 9 Mar. 1723, Catherine, da. of Sir Jeremy Sambrooke of Bush Hill, Enfield, Mdx., sis. of (Sir) Samuel Vanaker Sambrooke* (3rd Bt.*), 1s. 1da.  suc. fa. as 4th Bt. 12 May 1724.1

Offices Held

Commr. revenue [I] 1709–11, 1714–25; ld. of Treasury 1725–7; treasurer to Queen 1720–30; sec. at war 1730–9 May 1735; PC 11 June 1730.2

Biography

In April 1703 the secretary of state issued passes for Strickland to go to Holland with Monsieur La Treille (presumably a French Huguenot) as his governor, and two servants. Strickland appears to have had no other formal education. As a leading member of the Whig Junto, his father had access to patronage for his son, so that the Duke of Devonshire (William Cavendish*) wrote to Lord Godolphin (Sidney†) on 12 July 1708:

Sir William Strickland told me your lordship was so kind as to promise him some employment for his son and did desire me to remind your lordship if anything should fall in his absence, and having heard that one of the commissioners of the revenue in Ireland is dead, I am obliged by my promise to apply to your lordship for Mr Strickland to succeed in that employment.3

Strickland first stood for election at Malton in 1708, his father having vacated his seat in the borough in order to contest the county election. Following a double return for Malton, Strickland was declared elected on 14 Dec. He acted as a teller on 7 Mar. for a motion that the bill for the naturalization of the Palatines pass, and in April against hearing the petitions of the Chancery clerks relating to the Middlesex register (15th), for an amendment to the bill for improving the Union (18th), and for agreeing with the Lords’ amendment to the bill to prevent mischiefs by fire (20th). In the summer the promise made to the Duke of Devonshire was honoured when Strickland became a commissioner of the Irish revenue, with a salary of £1,000 p.a. Having been returned unopposed in a by-election in November 1709, which had been necessitated by his appointment to office, in the 1709–10 session Strickland told on 8 Feb. 1710 against an address that the convocation of tinners should not sit during the present Parliament, and on 24 Mar. against adjourning the House while it was considering a motion that Dr Sacheverell’s answer to the articles of impeachment should be burnt by the common hangman. Strickland was listed as supporting Sacheverell’s impeachment.4

Successful at Malton in a contested election in 1710, despite petitions from the defeated candidate and the ‘out-freeholders and borough men’ of Malton, Strickland also initially retained his Irish post under Robert Harley’s* administration. Classed as a Whig in the ‘Hanover list’, Strickland was one of the Members who supported Mungo Graham prior to the latter being unseated by the House on 10 Feb. 1711. In April he told against declaring the Tory John Orfeur as elected for Cockermouth (7th), and against a motion for adjourning the debate on establishing a General Post Office (18th). His decision to side with a hard core of Whigs in opposition to the administration, when he voted against the amendment to the South Sea bill on 25 May, was probably the reason why he was removed from his post as an Irish revenue commissioner in September. In the 1711–12 session he voted for the motion demanding ‘No Peace without Spain’ on 7 Dec., while on 24 Jan. 1712 he told in favour of amending the question of censure of Marlborough in relation to taking money from the bread contractors for the army, and on 28 May in favour of a motion for an address requesting that orders for prosecuting the war with the ‘utmost vigour’ be issued to the Duke of Ormond. In the 1713 session he acted as a teller on 14 May against a motion for bringing in a bill to make effectual the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. He voted against the bill confirming these articles on 18 June, on which occasion he was classed as a Whig. On 9 July he told against an amendment to the bill for encouraging the tobacco trade.5

Having been returned unopposed in the 1713 election, Strickland voted against the expulsion of Richard Steele on 18 Mar. 1714. On the 31st Strickland told against counsel for the sitting Members in the Ipswich election case giving evidence on the constitution of the borough. In June he acted as a teller against the soap duties (22nd), and for an amendment to the bill for the sale of Lord Ranelagh’s (Richard Jones*) estates, which was aimed at ensuring that the debts to the crown should be discharged first (24th). On 8 July Strickland told in favour of presenting an address to the Queen for an account of the army debt. He was included as a Whig in the Worsley list that year. Recommended for Carlisle by Lord Carlisle (Charles Howard*) in 1715, Strickland was returned unopposed for that borough, on which occasion he was noted as a Whig in a comparative analysis of the new Parliament with its predecessor. After the Hanoverian succession Strickland was reappointed as an Irish revenue commissioner, and later became a lord of the Treasury and one of the chief government spokesmen in Parliament. He died on 1 Sept. 1735.6

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Eveline Cruickshanks / Ivar McGrath

Notes

• 1. Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ed. Clay, iii. 125; CSP Dom. 1703–4, p. 302; Borthwick Inst. York, wills, Dickering, Oct. 1736.
• 2. Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniae ed. Lascelles, i(2), 134; Cal. Treas. Bks. xxiii. 277–8.
• 3. CSP Dom. 1703–4, p. 302; Add. 28052, f. 125.
• 4. N. Yorks. RO, Worsley mss ZON 13/1/303, (Sir) Thomas Frankland I* (2nd Bt.) to Thomas Worsley I*, 11 Aug. 1709; Cal. Treas. Bks. 277–8, 452.
• 5. HMC Portland, iv. 617; Worsley mss ZON 13/1/314, Thomas Worsley I to Thomas Worsley II*, 19 Oct. 1710; SRO, Montrose mss GD220/5/808/18a–b, Graham to Duke of Montrose, 13 Feb. 1711; Hist. Jnl. iv. 193; Lascelles, 134.
• 6. Cumbria RO (Carlisle), Lonsdale mss D/Lons/W2/3/14, Gilfrid Lawson* to James Lowther*, 8 Sept. 1714; Clay, 125.