Family and Education

b. 3 Jan. 1712, 4th s. of Sir Stephen Glynne, 3rd Bt., by Sophia, da. and coh. of Sir Edward Evelyn, 1st Bt., of Long Ditton. educ. Queen’s, Oxf. 1730. m. (1) 23 Jan. 1732,1 Honoria (d. 10 Feb. 1769), da. and h. of Henry Conway of Bodrhyddan, Flints., 6s. 8da.; (2) 27 Mar. 1772, Augusta Beaumont, governess to his children, s.p. suc. bro. as 6th Bt. Aug. 1730; built Hawarden Castle 1752.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Flints. 1751-2.

Biography

After Glynne re-entered Parliament in 1753 Mrs. E. Conway wrote to George Grenville, 4 Jan. 1754:2

I don’t believe Sir John had any thoughts of standing before Mr. Williams’ death gave him so fair an opportunity, for he has always declared he would have nothing to do in a contested election ... I have a great esteem for Sir John, both as a relation and a deserving man, and one that I think won’t inflame but endeavour to keep all parties in peace.

An agreement between Sir Thomas Mostyn and Glynne secured for them uncontested elections in county and boroughs. In Newcastle’s list of candidates in March-April 1754 Glynne is marked ‘Tory, moderate’; and in the lists drawn up after the general election he is included among ‘Tories, against’. He was a frequent speaker in the House, and even for the very poorly reported Parliament of 1754-61 there are a few traces of his intervention, then as later on the orthodox Tory lines. Thus Roger Kenyon reported on 25 Feb. 1758 to Lloyd Kenyon: ‘John Glynne has speeched it away last week in support of the triennial bill, and they say pretty sensibly, but the motion was rejected again by a great majority.’ And again, on 25 June 1759: ‘The behaviour of Sir J. Glynne raised my indignation not a little ... He is, I find, a great condemner of Mr. Pitt, and little better than a chattering caff [sic].’3

He continued in the new reign the pursuit of lost causes of the Tory type, with a peculiar anti-Pitt twist of his own. On 1 Dec. 1761 he

moved for a book to register alphabetically the qualifications; insinuated they might be withdrawn; hinted the difficulty of inspecting them as they stood.4

When on 11 Dec. Pitt’s friends moved for the Spanish papers, Glynne spoke against it:

That that time twenty years had been famous for calling for papers; with intention then to condemn a minister; now it was with a view to applauding one. A paper had been produced at that time which the King of Prussia never forgave. Himself had never seen any benefits arise from motions of that sort.5

Glynne is included in Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries, December 1762; was counted by Jenkinson as an Administration supporter in the autumn of 1763; and was pro-Administration in his speeches. He is reported by Jenkinson to have spoken in favour of North’s resolution against privilege for seditious libel, 24 Nov. 1763,6 though Harris describes his intervention as a ‘little burlesque’ with no bearing on the debate. And reporting the debate of 6 Feb. 1764 on Wilkes’s complaint of breach of privilege, Harris notes merely that Glynne ‘gets up and jokes’, though Walpole included him with Members who ‘debated the question for the court’. Glynne was anxious for the Commons to reconsider the marriage bill, which he considered ‘had separated man and wife, and instead of preventing clandestine marriages, had increased them’;7 and when on 9 Feb. 1764 he re-introduced the matter, Harris reports, apparently with surprise, that Glynne was ‘not amiss nor ludicrous’, and on 6 Mar. made ‘a set speech part of it very well, where he addressed first the young men and then the old ones, showing how far each of them were interested against the bill’. During the debate of 11 May 1765 on the Regency Glynne spoke on the side of Administration. In Rockingham’s list of July 1765 he was classed as an opponent; and he spoke and voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act, 21-22 Feb. 1766. He voted against Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767; spoke and voted with Administration on the expulsion of Wilkes, 3 Feb. 1769, and again voted with Administration on the Middlesex election, 15 Apr. 1769. In Robinson’s first survey drawn up for the royal marriage bill, March 1772, Glynne is marked ‘pro, sent to’; in the second, of 9 Mar., as ‘pro, present’; and on 11 Mar. he spoke in support of the bill.8 After that no other vote or speech by him is reported.  He died 1 June 1777.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Peter D.G. Thomas

Notes

• 1. Genealogists’ Mag. vii. 69; Gent Mag. gives 17 Aug. 1731.
• 2. Grenville mss (JM).
• 3. HMC Kenyon, 495-6.
• 4. Harris’s ‘Debates’.
• 5. Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, i. 91.
• 6. Namier, Add. Corr. to Fortescue, 85.
• 7. Harris’s ‘Debates’, 27 Jan. 1764.
• 8. Cavendish’s ‘Debates’ Egerton 236, p. 177.