Family and Education

b. aft.1676, 1st s. of John Milborne of the Inner Temple by Mary Emma, da. of one Bishop of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.  educ. I. Temple 1689.  m. by 1714, Rebecca, da. of Robert Johnson, 2s. 1da.  suc. fa. 1699.1

Offices Held

Conservator, Bedford level 1701–d.2

Biography

The Beaufort nominee at Monmouth in three successive Parliaments, Milborne was not without strong local connexions of his own: his father, a London lawyer, was a younger son of the squire of Wonastow, Monmouthshire, and his great-uncle, Henry Milborne, seneschal of the Beaufort manors, had served as recorder of Monmouth corporation from 1677 until his death in 1692. At the same time, the Member seems not to have possessed any property in the county, his name being added to the land tax commission there only after his election to Parliament.3

Naturally, given that his patrons were the Dukes of Beaufort, Milborne was a Tory. He maintained contacts with High Churchmen in Oxford, allowing the master of University College, Arthur Charlett, to exploit parliamentary privilege by using his name as a cover in correspondence. He was also admitted in July 1709 to the ‘Board of Brothers’, the Tory drinking club presided over by Beaufort, but could not keep up with the pace of conviviality: reprimanded in June 1710 for breaking the rules of the club and only excused after making a ‘remarkable speech’ (of a kind he is never recorded as contributing to Commons’ debates), he was finally expelled a month later ‘for his infamous neglect of this board and transgressing the orders’. That his backsliding had been of a social rather than a political nature is shown by his vote in 1710 against the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell, and his re-election that year with Beaufort’s backing. On this occasion the Duke endorsed his candidature as one who had ‘faithfully attended’ his constituents’ ‘service’ in the House, but admitted to the voters that Milborne was ‘very much out of order at present’. Classified in the ‘Hanover list’ as a Tory, he was included in the first session among the ‘worthy patriots’ who exposed the mismanagements of the previous ministry, and the ‘Tory patriots’ who had opposed the continuation of the war. He was also a member of the October Club. In 1712 his brother John was successfully recommended by Beaufort for a place as a lottery commissioner. The following year, on 18 June 1713, Milborne voted with the Court in support of the French commerce bill. Largely because he enjoyed Beaufort’s patronage, he has been suggested as a ‘possible’ Jacobite, but nothing has been discovered of his sentiments in this regard. In March 1714 he was appointed to the commission of the peace for Surrey, in an extensive regulation. The Worsley list described him as a Tory.4

Milborne did not stand for Parliament after the Hanoverian succession. He died at his home in Kent on 13 Sept. 1726, and was buried near his father at the parish church of St. Luke, Chelsea. His estate comprised property in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Kent, as well as a lease of the house in Bloomsbury Square. He required that a sum of £1,500 be raised for his younger son and an unspecified portion for his daughter. Judde House went to his wife, who eventually sold it.5

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. Misc. Gen. et Her. ser. 5, iv. 172, 192–5; Foster, London Mar. Lic. 921; Recs. Old Westminsters, ii. 645.
• 2. S. Wells, Drainage of the Bedford Level, i. 473, 487.
• 3. Cal. I. Temple Recs. iii. 289, 293; Misc. Gen. et Her. iii. 236–44; iv. 63, 192; Schedule of Milborne Fam. Pprs. (NLW, 1948), 370; Bradney, Mon. i. 39; CSP Dom. 1696, p. 20.
• 4. Bodl. Ballard 36, ff. 64–73, 101; Add. 49360, ff. 3, 28, 33; 70155, lists of lottery commrs.; Beaufort mss at Badminton House, Coventry pprs., Beaufort to the electors of Monmouth, 2 Sept. 1710, same to John Morgan II*, 12 Sept. 1710, same to Milborne, 15 Aug. 1713; Boyer, Pol. State, iii. 120; Szechi thesis, App. 2; L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 225.
• 5. Hist. Reg. Chron. 1726, p. 36; Faulkner, Chelsea, i. 250; Misc. Gen. et Her. iv. 193–4; Hasted, Kent, vi. 520.