OLMIUS, John (1711-62), of New Hall, Boreham, Essex

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

10 Mar. 1737 - 1741
1741 - 26 Feb. 1742
1754 - 1761
1761 - 5 Oct. 1762

Family and Education

b. 18 July 1711, o.s. of John Olmius of Braintree, Essex, dep. gov. of Bank of England, by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Thomas Clarke, London merchant.  m. 8 Sept. 1741, Anne, da. and h. of Sir William Billers of Thorley, Herts., ld. mayor of London 1733-4, 1s. 1 da.  suc. fa. 20 Dec. 1731; cr. Baron Waltham [I] 22 June 1762.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Essex 1746-7.

Biography

Olmius was the grandson of a wealthy Dutch merchant of St. Peter-le-Poor, London, who bought the Essex estates of the Earl of Scarsdale at the beginning of the 18th century.1 Olmius bought New Hall, near Chelmsford, formerly the seat of the dukes of Buckingham and Albemarle, in 1737. He was a supporter of Walpole and subsequently of the Pelhams; and was returned for Colchester in 1754, after an interval of 12 years.

In 1757 Olmius presented a memorial to Newcastle,2 ‘to be laid before the King when there was any design to create Knights of the Bath’, detailing his services in elections at Weymouth and Colchester and during the ’45. About Colchester he wrote: ‘I may say no man has a better interest than myself’; and about Weymouth: ‘I stand in fear of none.’ Both statements appear to be highly exaggerated.

In the next reign he applied to Bute for an English peerage in the Coronation honours,3 and received an Irish one three months before his death on 5 Oct. 1762.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Sir Lewis Namier

Notes

  • 1. Morant, Essex (1816), p. 84.
  • 2. Add. 32874, f. 209.
  • 3. 1 Aug. 1761, Bute mss.