Family and Education

b. 27 May 1712, 2nd s. of Sir Thomas Cave, 3rd Bt., M.P., by Hon. Margaret Verney, da. of John, 1st Visct. Fermanagh [I], M.P., and aunt of Ralph, 2nd Earl Verney [I]. educ. Rugby 1720; Balliol, Oxf. 1729; I. Temple 1725, called 1735. m. Nov. 1735, Elizabeth, da. and h. of Griffith Davies, M.D., of Theddingworth, Leics., 2s. 6da. suc. bro. as 5th Bt. 13 Sept. 1734.

Offices Held

Biography

Cave was returned without a contest in 1762 and 1768.

He appears in Henry Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries, December 1762. He voted against the Grenville Administration over general warrants, 15 and 18 Feb. 1764, but was classed by Jenkinson as normally a friend. In July 1765 Rockingham classed him as doubtful, but he seems to have supported the Rockingham Administration although he voted against the window tax, 18 Apr. 1766.1 Classed either as Tory or country gentleman in the lists of 1766-7, he voted against Chatham’s Administration over the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, and the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768.

He does not appear in any of the eleven division lists 1769-71. Robinson in the first survey on the royal marriage bill classed him as ‘doubtful, present’, and in the second as ‘pro, present’. His only recorded speech was on 2 Mar. 1772 against the bill to abolish the observation of Charles I’s execution. In this Parliament his only other known vote was against the court on the Middlesex resolution of 26 Apr. 1773. In 1774 he was again a candidate for Leicestershire but withdrew because of ill health.

Cave was well known as an antiquarian. He was chairman of the committee which sponsored the publication of Bridges’s History of Northamptonshire, and collected materials which were afterwards used by John Nichols in his History of Leicestershire.

He died 7 Aug. 1778.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Geo. Onslow to Newcastle, 18 Apr. 1766, Add. 32974, ff. 425-6.