Family and Education

b. 9 May 1735, 1st s. of George Venables Vernon by his 1st w.  educ. Westminster 1742-5; Trinity Hall, Camb. 1753.  m. (1) 16 July 1757, Hon. Louisa Barbarina Mansell (d. 16 Feb. 1786), da. and h. of Bussy, 4th Baron Mansell, 2s. 2da.; (2) 25 May 1787, Jane Georgina, da. of William Fauquier of Hanover, 2da.  suc. fa. as 2nd Baron Vernon 21 Aug. 1780.

Offices Held

Biography

In 1757 Vernon was returned for Weobley on the interest of Lord Weymouth, to whom he was distantly related. He did not stand at the general election of 1761. When Vernon’s father was created a peer and William Fitzherbert vacated his seat at Bramber to stand for Derby, Vernon replaced him at Bramber. He voted against the peace preliminaries in December 1762, and with the Opposition over Wilkes, 15 Nov. 1763; although absent from the divisions on general warrants in February 1764, he was classed by Newcastle, 10 May, as a ‘sure friend’. Rockingham in July 1765 and November 1766 counted him as a friend, and he voted against Chatham’s Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767.

Vernon inherited through his wife considerable property in Glamorgan, and considered standing for the county at the by-election of 1767, but was refused the Chiltern Hundreds.1 In 1768 and 1774 he was returned unopposed. He voted for the expulsion of Wilkes but with the Opposition on the Middlesex election; went over to Administration in 1771 or 1772; but returned to Opposition on the outbreak of the American war, and voted with them regularly until he left the Commons. Only one speech by him is reported: 1 May 1769, on a point of privilege.2

He died 18 June 1813.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Corresp. with Sir Charles Kemys Tynte, Tynte mss, Somerset RO.
• 2. Cavendish’s ‘Debates’, Egerton 219, pp. 325-6.