Family and Education

b. c.1699, o.s. of Samuel Edwin. m. 1 May 1736, Lady Charlotte Hamilton, da. of James, 4th Duke of Hamilton [S], s.p. suc. fa. 1722; and uncle Thomas Edwin to estate of Headley, Surr. and to lands in Northants. and Suss. 1735.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Northants. 1739-40.

Biography

Two days before the Westminster election of 1741 it was decided to put up Admiral Vernon for the city against the government candidates. ‘Mr. Edwin, a gentleman of Wales, of good fortune, appearing accidentally at the meeting held for the purpose of the Admiral’s nomination, was joined with him’.1 The impression created by Edwin’s candidature is shown by a letter written after the return of his opponents.

Poor Mr. Edwin’s name at first turned the thing to a farce, but the poll has been carried on with great vigour and expense on both sides ... Mr. Edwin having neither chance nor pretence his part is ridiculous enough, and those who really wish the Prince well are vexed there should be an opposition made with so little prospect of success, and by a man of so little eminence.2

On the annulment of the election by the Commons the Prince and the opposition leaders could not prevent Edwin, ‘who accidentally was the person pitched upon by the mob for the first contest’, from being re-nominated since ‘it was impossible to suppose the people would depart from him in gratitude for the money he had spent’.3 This time he was joined with Lord Perceval — ‘Lord Perceive-all and Mr. Perceive-nothing’, as Horace Walpole called them4 — with whom he was returned unopposed.

A Tory, Edwin, known to his friends as ‘Numps’,5 voted with the Opposition. In 1743 he tried to steal a march on his fellow-Member by presenting, without Perceval’s knowledge, an address from the city of Westminster to the King, who refused to receive it, ordering Edwin to be told that ‘he did not care to receive addresses presented by only one Member, when both were in town’.6

In 1747 Edwin was returned on the Tory interest for Glamorgan. He died 29 June 1756.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Hist. House of Yvery, ii. 460.
• 2. HMC Carlisle, 197.
• 3. Egmont mss, Add. 47091.
• 4. To Mann, 7 Jan. 1742.
• 5. Walpole to Mann, 22 Jan. 1742; HMC Denbigh, v. 178.
• 6. HMC Egmont Diary, iii. 292