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TRELAWNY, Charles (?1706-1764), of Coldrenick, nr. Liskeard, Cornw.
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Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. ?1706, 2nd s. of Edward Trelawny, dean of Exeter, by Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Darell of Chawcroft, Hants; bro. of Darell Trelawny. educ. Westminster 1715-21; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 15 Dec. 1722, aged 16. unm. suc. bro. Darell 1727.
Offices Held
Assay master of the stannaries 1742-d.
Biography
Chosen for Liskeard by Richard Eliot in March 1740, Trelawny was unable to take his seat as the return had been stolen in a robbery of the western mail. Edward Harley reports:
As this was an entire new case, the House were at a loss how to proceed. Some Members proposed to hear viva voce evidence of the election and return and upon this to admit Mr. Trelawny, ... but this proposal of admitting viva voce evidence to supply a record would not be listened to. Then it was proposed that the lord chancellor should make a facsimile, but this was not approved. The House not knowing what to do, adjourned the consideration to a day when the sessions would be over.
During
the next sessions, 19 Nov. 1740, the matter was again heard, and several persons [including the sheriff of the county] examined in relation to it, when it was ordered nem. con. that the deputy clerk of the Crown do file among the returns of Members to serve in this present Parliament for the county of Cornwall, the counterpart of the indenture, executed by the sheriff of Cornwall, of the return of Charles Trelawny Esq. to serve as a burgess for the borough of Liskeard, it appearing to this House, that the writ and the principal part of the aforesaid indenture were taken away, in coming up to the clerk of the Crown, by highwaymen, who destroyed the same by burning them.1
Like Eliot, a member of the Prince of Wales’s party, holding from 1742 a duchy of Cornwall office, he followed the Prince’s lead in Parliament, voting with the Opposition till Walpole’s fall, after which he supported the new Administration, till the Prince reverted to opposition in 1747. Going over to the Government on Frederick’s death in 1751, he was allowed by Pelham to retain his office in return for standing down in favour of Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield’s illegitimate son, in 1754.2 On his death, 6 Oct. 1764, Coldrenick passed to his maternal cousin, Henry St. George Darell, who assumed the name of Trelawny.
