Family and Education

b. 10 Apr. 1770, 1st s. of Rev. George Hudleston Jervoise Purefoy Jervoise of Britford, Wilts. by Mary, da. and coh. of Rev. Wright Hawes, rector of Shalstone, Bucks. educ. Westminster 1781-6; Corpus, Oxf. 1787-91. m. (1) 10 Apr. 1799, Elizabeth (d.1821), da. and h. of Thomas Hall of Preston Candover, Hants, s.p.; (2) 18 Apr. 1837, Anna Maria Selina, da. of Wadham Locke^† of Rowdeford, Wilts., s.p. suc. fa. 1805.

Offices Held

Capt. N. Hants militia 1794, lt.-col. 1798, col. 1800-11; sheriff, Hants 1830-1.

Biography

Jervoise’s childless uncle, Tristram Hudleston Jervoise of Britford (d.1794) meant him to cut a figure in the world, for he devised the Herriard estate worth £25,000 to him in 1792 and wrote to Pitt the prime minister on 31 Oct.

desirous of his being introduced to your countenance ... he is reported to be a gentleman of tolerable capacity and good behaviour. I am ambitious of his being a senator. Permit me to request the favour of your assistance to that purpose.1

It was not until 1813 that Jervoise entered Parliament. He then offered on a vacancy for Salisbury and, getting the start of his opponent Wadham Wyndham*, defeated him in a contest. He was supposed to be a ministerialist but, as Lord Folkestone alleged,

voted constantly in opposition on points connected with internal policy: whether that was his original bias, or he was converted by what he had witnessed in the House, or found his opinion on each question on which he voted, I cannot say—I believe the last.2

Jervoise is not known to have spoken in debate. He voted with the majority in favour of the sinecure bill, 29 Mar. 1813, but in the minority in favour of a civil list committee, 27 May. On 24 May he opposed Catholic relief, but on 22 Apr. 1814 voted for the censure of the Speaker’s conduct on that question—in 1816 and 1817 he supported relief. On 28 Feb. 1815 he opposed the continuation of the militia in peace time. He opposed the revised Corn Laws on 3 and 10 Mar. 1815 and the income tax, 1 May, voting for the reception of the London petition for retrenchment that day. He further voted against Lord Melville’s pension, 24 May, and against the Regent’s extraordinary expenditure, 31 May. In the session of 1816 he voted steadily for retrenchment and in May joined opposition to the Bank restriction, the aliens bill and the unconstitutional use of the military. Nor did he change this line in 1817, when he also opposed the suspension of habeas corpus in February and voted for Burdett’s parliamentary reform motion on 20 May. Thereafter his attendance fell off: he voted against the treatment of political prisoners in Scotland, 10 Feb. 1818, but next appeared in minorities of 18, 19 and 22 May against the Bank restriction and aliens bills. His last known vote was against the conduct of Lt.-Gen. Campbell in the Ionian isles, 1 June.

Faced with another contest against his competitor of 1813, Jervoise retired in 1818. He informed his constituents, some of whom were dissatisfied with his conduct, that he had ‘resisted every proceeding ... which militated against the liberty of the subject or the purse of the people’, but claimed credit for never having ‘unnecessarily thrown impediments in the way of ministers in the discharge of their official duties’.3 Within two years he was county Member. He died 1 Dec. 1847.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

• 1. PRO 30/8/148, f. 154.
• 2. Berks. RO, Pleydell Bouverie mss 027.
• 3. Salisbury and Winchester Jnl. 15 June 1818.