TYLNEY, John, 2nd Earl Tylney [I] (1712-84), of Wanstead, Essex

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

1761 - 1768

Family and Education

bap. 22 Oct. 1712, 1st. surv. s. of Richard Child, M.P. (cr. 1731 Earl Tylney [I]; s. of Sir Josiah Child, 1st Bt., M.P.), by Dorothy, da. and h. of John Glynne of Henley Park, Surr. (by Dorothy, da. of Frederick Tylney of Tylney Hall, Hants). Having suc. to Tylney estates, Richard Child and his sons took name of Tylney 1734.  educ. Westminster 1721; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 1732. unm.  suc. fa. as 2nd Earl Tylney [I] March 1750.

Offices Held

Biography

On 13 Oct. 1758 Tylney wrote, presumably to Richard Rigby, his neighbour in Essex and political agent of the Duke of Bedford, who, as a great-grandson through his mother of Josiah Child, was related to Tylney:1

I am just returned from Werrington where I have been to spend some time with Mr. Morice. Not long before I left that place I happened to mention the resolution I had lately taken not to enter into a contested election for the county of Essex, and at the same time expressed my intention to endeavour to be chose for some borough. Mr. Morice ... a day or two after ... took an opportunity to tell me he would undertake to bring me into Parliament if I had interest enough with the Duke of Bedford to prevail upon his Grace not to give him more trouble and to let him settle some parish affairs at Newport ... This offer of Mr. Morice’s being so like what you had some time ago told me ... I could not but recollect what you had said to me.

Tylney therefore now inquired whether the Duke was still of the same way of thinking. Apparently he was, and Tylney set out for Cornwall, but, he wrote to Rigby on 29 Dec.:

I was met in the way by a messenger from Mr. Morice’s steward to inform me that he could not prevail with the voters to join in bringing me in for the borough, and that it would be in vain for me to pursue my journey any further. Therefore I thought it best to lay aside all thoughts of offering myself as a candidate for that place. However I return you my sincere thanks for the friendship you have been so good as to show me in this affair.

A few months later a vacancy occurred in the representation of Essex, and at a meeting of the leading Essex Whigs, at Lord Rochford’s, 7 Apr. 1759, Tylney was the first to be offered the succession, but ‘absolutely declined standing’—it was calculated that the expense of such an election (though so near the end of that Parliament) would be ‘near £10,000’.2 In 1761 Tylney was returned for Malmesbury by Henry Fox, in whose private ledgers3 there appears a payment of £2,000 made for the Malmesbury election by Sir Robert Long, Tylney’s brother-in-law. In Newcastle’s list of 26 Oct. 1761 Tylney’s attendance at the opening of the session was to be secured through Fox; and in Fox’s list of December 1762 his name appears among those who would vote with the court on the peace preliminaries. He is not mentioned in Essex local politics after June 1763, and does not appear in any parliamentary division list either. In February 1764, during the struggle over general warrants, Tylney was in Italy.4 In Rockingham’s list of November 1766 and Newcastle’s of March 1767, he was classed as absent. He did not stand again in 1768.

He died 17 Sept. 1784 at Naples, ‘where he had resided for many years’,5 and left his estates to his nephew, James Tylney Long.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

  • 1. Bedford mss.
  • 2. Jas. West to Newcastle, 7 Apr. 1759, Add. 32889, f. 394.
  • 3. L. S. Sutherland & J. E. D. Binney, ‘Henry Fox as Paymaster General of the Forces’, EHR 1955.
  • 4. Gibbon to Holroyd, 18 May 1764.
  • 5. Gent. Mag. 1784, ii. 797.