SIBTHORP, Coningsby (1706-79), of Canwick, Lincs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1734 - 1741
1747 - 1754
1761 - 1768

Family and Education

b. 1706, 2nd s. of John Sibthorp, M.P. for Lincoln, by Mary, da. and coh. of Humphrey Browne.  educ. Westminster 1718; Hart Hall and Magdalen Oxf. 1724-8. unm.  suc. bro. 1727.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Lincs. 1733-4.

Biography

Sibthorp lived near Lincoln and had a strong interest in the borough. He did not stand in 1754; and was returned in 1761 after an unexpected contest brought on by Thomas Scrope’s intervention. Sibthorp did not receive Newcastle’s parliamentary whip, being classed as a Tory. He does not appear in Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries, but was classed by Jenkinson in the autumn of 1763 as a Government supporter. Over the divisions on general warrants he was listed by the Government as an absent friend.

When soliciting Rockingham’s vote for appointing his brother Humphrey Sibthorp physician to the Charterhouse, he wrote, 12 Nov. 1764:1 ‘As I never asked the least favour for myself or friend during the many years I’ve been in Parliament ...’ And Sandwich wrote to Bedford on the 15th2 that Grenville, Lord Gower, and himself had promised to vote for him—

your Grace’s concurrence will probably secure his election; and as Mr. Sibthorp requests this as a person who though a Member of Parliament never asked a favour before, I should think it will be conferring a favour on him at a very cheap rate.

He voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act, was classed by Rockingham in November 1766 as ‘Tory, perhaps not ministerial’ and by Townshend in January 1767 as ‘doubtful’; voted against the Government over the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, and was again classed by Newcastle in March 1767 as a Tory. He did not stand again in 1768.

He died 20 July 1779.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

  • 1. Rockingham mss.
  • 2. Bedford mss 50, f. 208.