ALSTON, Sir Rowland, 4th Bt. (1679-1759), of Odell, Beds.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1722 - 1741

Family and Education

bap. 6 Sept. 1679,1 4th s. of Sir Rowland Alston, 2nd Bt., by Temperance, 2nd da. and coh. of Thomas Crew, M.P., 2nd Baron Crew of Stene. m. by 1719, Elizabeth, o. da. and h. of Capt. Thomas Raynes, 2s. 5da. suc. e. bro. Sir Thomas Alston, 3rd Bt., M.P., Dec. 1714.

Offices Held

Biography

Sir Rowland Alston represented the county as a Whig in three Parliaments, voting for the Administration in all recorded divisions. Before the 1734 election his uncle, the Duke of Kent, wrote to Walpole: ‘As for Sir Rowland Alston, tho’ I have no reason to like him nor his behaviour to me, yet my resentment would not carry me so far but I could give it up if the public required it’.2 Alston was then standing with John Spencer, the Duchess of Marlborough’s grandson. The Duchess disliked ‘joining with so bad a man as Alston ... a certain enemy to the public’,3 but both he and Spencer were returned. He did not stand in 1741 and died 2 Jan. 1759.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

  • 1. Cresswell, Stemmata Alstoniana, 16-17.
  • 2. 15 Dec. 1733, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss.
  • 3. G. Scott Thomson, Letters of a Grandmother, 113-14.