Family and Education

b. 1 Mar. 1760, 1st s. of Thomas Rumbold.  educ. Harrow 1771-6.  unm.

Offices Held

Ensign 6 Ft. 1777; lt. and capt. 1 Ft. Gds. 1780.

Biography

In February 1778 Rumbold arrived in India with his father, the new governor of Madras, and was appointed aide-de-camp to Sir Hector Munro, with the rank of captain in the East India Company’s forces. He was present at the siege of Pondicherry, and immediately afterwards returned to England with dispatches. In 1781, when Sir Thomas Rumbold on his return to England was faced with the threat of a parliamentary inquiry and in need of support in the House, he arranged for his son’s return for Weymouth. In Parliament young Rumbold followed his father’s line implicitly: his three reported speeches were all pleas on Sir Thomas’s behalf; that of 6 May 1782 repeated almost word for word Rumbold senior’s own arguments that the bill for tying up his estates might be ‘considered as a punishment’ and ‘to be punished without conviction, nay, without trial, was contrary to the ... laws of justice’.1 Like his father, Rumbold voted regularly with North’s Administration till its fall; did not vote on Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, or Fox’s East India bill, 27 Nov. 1783; was classed as ‘doubtful’ in Robinson’s list of January 1784, and as ‘Opposition’ in Stockdale’s of 19 Mar. At the general election Rumbold’s father took his place at Weymouth, while they both unsuccessfully contested Shaftesbury.

William Rumbold died 14 June 1786.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

• 1. Debrett, vii. 113.