Family and Education

b. ?1787, 2nd s. of Edmund Bastard*, and bro. of Edmund Pollexfen Bastard*. educ. Eton c.1800. m. 7 Oct. 1817, Frances, da. and coh. of Benjamin Wade of New Grange, Yorks., 3s. 1da. suc. mother to Sharpham 1822.

Offices Held

Lt. RN 1804, cdr. 1806, capt. 1807.

Capt. S. Hams yeomanry 1820.

Biography

Bastard obtained his first naval promotion through the recommendation of Lord St. Vincent, made as a deliberate mark of respect to the memory of his maternal grandfather, Captain Philemon Pownall, who had been killed in action in 1780.1 He saw action in the East Indies in 1806 and served on the Halifax station during the American war.

When his elder brother vacated Dartmouth to stand for Devon on the death of their uncle in 1816, John was returned unopposed in his place. He made no more mark in the House, where he is not known to have spoken before 1820, than he had in the navy, but he seems to have been a marginally more conscientious attender than his brother and slightly more inclined to support government. He voted with them for the suspension of habeas corpus, 23 June 1817, in defence of the use of domestic spies, 5 Mar. 1818, on the case of Wyndham Quin*, 29 Mar., against Tierney’s motion, 18 May, and for the foreign enlistment bill, 10 June 1819. His only known wayward votes were to reduce the Duke of Clarence’s marriage grant, 15 Apr. 1818, and for the repeal of the coal duties, 20 June 1819. Like his brother, he voted against Catholic relief, 9 May 1817.

Bastard, whose inheritance of the former Pownall estates was a substantial one, died 11 Jan. 1835, ‘in his 48th year’.2

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: Winifred Stokes

Notes

• 1. St. Vincent Letters (Navy Recs. Soc. lxi), 356.
• 2. Gent. Mag. (1835), i. 661.