Family and Education

b. 1735, o.s. of Lucius Charles, 7th Visct. Falkland [S], by his 1st w. Jane, da. and h. of Richard Butler of London, conveyancer, and wid. of James, Lord Villiers, 1st s. of the 1st Earl Grandison. educ. Westminster 1747-52. m. 28 Nov. 1757,1 at Gibraltar, Anne, da. of Col. Alexander Leith, and sis. of Alexander Leith, 2s. 5da.

Offices Held

Ensign 2 Ft. Gds. 1752; capt. 14 Ft. 1755; maj. 74 Ft. 1762; half pay 1763-5; maj. 60 Ft. 1765-8; again half pay 1768-79; lt.-col. commandant 89 Ft. 1779- d.

Biography

Henry Cary was created in 1620 a Scottish viscount, although the family had no connexion with Scotland, but had represented Devon in 12 Parliaments during the first half of the 15th century.

Lord North wrote to the King on 10 Oct. 1774:2

There are not many alterations but he is sorry to say that in general they are for the worse. Mr. Sambroke Freeman is replaced at Bridport by Mr. Cary ... Mr. Cary may, however, be a friend to Government ...

Cary voted 22 Feb. 1775 with the Opposition on Wilkes’s motion for expunging the resolution on the Middlesex election. He did not vote in the five divisions February-April 1780, being out of the country. John Robinson classed him in his survey for the general election of 1780 as ‘pro’, but added: ‘Mr. Cary can’t come [in] again.’ There is no record of his having spoken in the House.

He died v.p. in Tobago, 20 Aug. 1780. At his death he was in receipt of a secret service pension of £500 per annum.3 The King, on the application of Lord Falkland, granted pensions of £100 per annum to each of Cary’s five daughters, ‘left in extreme indigence by their father’.4

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

• 1. In the Scots Peerage the date is given as March 1760; but see Augustus Hervey’s Jnl. ed. D. Erskine,265.
• 2. Fortescue, iii. 137, should be dated 10 Oct.
• 3. Laprade, 50.
• 4. Fortescue, v. 204-5.