Family and Education

b. 31 Jan. 1736, 1st s. of William Langham of Rance, Northants. by Mary, da. of Anthony Drought, merchant.  educ. Lincoln, Oxf. 1753.  m.2 June 1767, Juliana, sis. and h. of Thomas Musgrave of Old Cleeve, Som., 3s.  suc. uncle as 7th Bt. 3 Sept. 1766.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Northants. 1767-8.

Capt. 85 Ft. 1759, maj. 1763, lt.-col. 1772, ret. 1780.

Biography

Langham contested Northampton in 1774, Taunton in 1782, and in 1784 was returned without opposition for Northamptonshire. He voted regularly with Pitt, even for parliamentary reform, 18 Apr. 1785; there is no record of his having spoken in the House. In a letter to Pitt of 4 Jan. 17881 requesting ‘the high honour of an English peerage’, he pleaded his service in the army, his estate of ‘unencumbered landed property in Northamptonshire and Somersetshire of £10,000 p.a.’, and his connexions with the aristocracy. He concluded:

I have taken the liberty of mentioning these circumstances, hoping they may in some degree compensate for the many deficiencies in my personal merit, and if I might flatter myself with the honour of your patronage on this occasion I shall wish to have the satisfaction of being assured of it, that I may take measures accordingly in my present situation; for though I have not the least doubt of being re-chosen for the county at the next general election I am but too much afraid that I shall be obliged to decline it from my precarious state of health.

Sixteen years later, during Pitt’s second administration,2 his son made the same application with the same result.

Langham died 7 Feb. 1795.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Chatham mss.
• 2. Sir W. Langham to Pitt, 24 Dec. 1804, ibid.