INGILBY, Sir John, 1st Bt. (1758-1815), of Ripley, Yorks.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1790 - 1796

Family and Education

b. 9 May 1758, illegit. s. of Sir John Ingilby, 4th Bt., of Ripley by Mary Wright. educ. ?Eton 1773-5; Emmanuel, Camb. 1777. m. 25 Oct. 1780, Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir Wharton Amcotts, 1st Bt.*, of Kettlethorpe, Lincs., 11 ch. (1s. surv.). suc. fa. 1772; cr. Bt. 8 June 1781.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Yorks. 1781-2; lt.-col. commdt. Knaresborough vols. 1804.

Biography

Ingilby, one of the few illegitimate baronets of the reign,1 replaced his father-in-law as Member for East Retford on the independent interest in 1790. He was suspected to be, and proved, a supporter of Pitt’s administration. In April 1791 he was reckoned as an opponent of the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland. On 6 June 1791 he spoke and was teller against a divorce bill. Later that year he visited the French princes at Koblenz and came home with ‘very sanguine opinions in favour of a counter revolution’. He cleared the gallery of the House during the debate on the prolongation of Warren Hastings’s trial, 7 June 1793, and was a teller on the contractors bill, 30 Apr. 1794. On 20 and 23 Jan. 1795 he was a defaulter and on 28 Jan. wrote to Pitt complaining of the expense to which he had been put to secure his election and attend the House. Later that year his father-in-law stated that ‘pecuniary embarrassments’ would prevent Ingilby from seeking re-election.2 Amcotts himself resumed the seat and later Ingilby’s son captured it.

Ingilby died 13 May 1815, having ‘during the last 36 years of his life, discharged the important duties of a magistrate with a degree of activity, zeal and intelligence that will render his death an irreparable loss to the public’.3

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: Arthur Aspinall

Notes

  • 1. Fortescue mss, Somers to Grenville, 11 Aug. 1806.
  • 2. Nottingham Univ. Lib. Newcastle mss NeC 2669; Morning Chron. 3 Jan. 1792; PRO 30/8/147, f. 203; Portland mss PwF104.
  • 3. Gent. Mag. (1815), i. 568.