TREBY, George (1685-1742), of Plympton, Devon

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1708 - 1727
1727 - 8 Mar. 1742

Family and Education

bap. 29 Oct. 1685, 1st s. of Sir George Treby*.  educ. Exeter, Oxf. matric. 3 Apr. 1701, aged 16; M. Temple 1692.  m. Charity, da. and coh. of Roger Hele of Holwell, Devon, 2s. 3da.  suc. fa. 1700.1

Offices Held

Commr. forfeited estates 1716–19; sec. at war 1718–24; teller of Exchequer 1724–7; master of the Household 1730–40; ld. of Treasury 1740–2.

Biography

Soon after coming of age, Treby assumed control of his family’s interest at Plympton and was returned without opposition at the 1708 election. He seems to have been an active participant in the debates of the House, as suggested by the frequency with which he acted as a teller. On 21 Dec. he told on the Whig side in the Whitchurch election case, and likewise in the Ashburton case on 22 Feb. 1709. He voted for the naturalization of the Palatines in 1709 and the following year for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. Re-elected in 1710, he was classed as a Whig in the ‘Hanover list’. He told for the committal of the place bill on 21 Dec. 1710, telling again on 10 Jan. 1711 in favour of allowing Quakers to qualify as voters by affirming. He was teller against the Tory candidate in the disputed election for Cockermouth on 7 Apr. 1711, and again on 22 May in favour of the motion that the mayor of Weymouth had been guilty of arbitrary and illegal practices. He voted in favour of the motion for ‘No Peace without Spain’ on 7 Dec. On account of his tellership on 2 Apr. 1712, against the motion that a private petition against Arthur Moore* was ‘frivolous and vexatious’, Treby was described by one observer as part of a ‘new squadron of the House of Commons who call themselves the Old England Club’. He was teller in favour of preparing an address to the crown over the French commercial treaty on 6 May, and voted on 18 June against the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the treaty. He was wrongly classed in one list as having voted in favour of the bill.2

Treby was returned for Plympton, once again without opposition, in 1713. He was teller on 15 Mar. 1714 in favour of an address on the demolition of fortifications at Dunkirk, and three days later voted against the expulsion of Richard Steele. On 20 Apr. he told against the election of the Tory John Burgh* for Brackley, and on 28 May in favour of referring the Harwich case to the elections committee. He was classed as a Whig in the Worsley list and two other comparative analyses of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments. Rising to high office under the Hanoverians, Treby died on 8 Mar. 1742.

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. IGI, London; Burke, LG (1871), ii. 1406.
  • 2. J. B. Rowe, Hist. Plympton, 168–9; Christ Church, Oxf. Wake mss 17, ff. 318–19.