WANDESFORD, Christopher, 2nd Visct. Castlecomer [I] (1684-1719), of Kirklington, Yorks.

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

Constituency

Dates

1710 - 1713
1715 - 23 June 1719

Family and Education

bap. 2 Mar. 1684, 1st s. of Christopher Wandesford M.P., 1st Visct. Castlecomer [I], by Elizabeth, da. of Hon. George Montagu of Horton, Northants. educ. Trinity, Dublin 1702. m. 1717, Frances, da. of Thomas Pelham, M.P., 1st Baron Pelham of Laughton, sis. of Thomas, 1st Duke of Newcastle, 1s. suc. fa. 15 Sept. 1707.

Offices Held

M.P. [I] 1707.

P.C. [I] 25 Apr. 1710; gov. Kilkenny 1715-d.

Biography

The Wandesford family had estates in Yorkshire within ten miles of Ripon, which the first Lord Castlecomer represented 1679-81 and for which his son, after sitting as a Whig for Morpeth under Anne, was returned in 1715, having also been elected for Morpeth. In July 1717 he moved and carried an address for excepting Lord Oxford from the Act of Grace and was chairman of the Commons committee appointed to draft it. In March 1718 he was announced to have been appointed1 secretary at war but received an unfavourable report from his agent as to his prospects of re-election:

I cannot tell what to think of them in case you should have occasion to be elected again, for I find a great many of the burrowmen that was our staunch friends before that will not give us their interest again. Our recorder and some others have said of late that your Lordship will never be chose for this place any more ... I know ... that as your Lordship did not upon any account take notice of them when here has given an occasion of general disgust, but if Mr.Aislabie will give you his interest heartily there would be no great hazard in it.2

In the event he was not appointed. Next year he was one of the Whigs who unexpectedly joined Walpole in voting against the Government on the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts.3 Classed by Craggs as Opposition but as ‘pro’ by Sunderland on the peerage bill, he died 23 June 1719.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: A. N. Newman

Notes

  • 1. Pol. State, xv. 376 and errata.
  • 2. H. B. MacCall, Wandesfordes of Kirklington and Castlecomer, 301-2.
  • 3. HMC Portland, v. 576.