RAMSDEN, John Charles (1788-1836), of Buckden and Newby Park, Yorks.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1812 - 1831
1831 - 1832
8 Mar. 1833 - 29 Dec. 1836

Family and Education

b. 30 Apr. 1788, 1st s. of Sir John Ramsden, 4th Bt., of Byram by Hon. Louisa Susan Ingram Shepherd, da. and coh. of Charles, 9th Visct. Irwin [S]. educ. Harrow 1798-1805. m. 5 May 1814, Hon. Isabella Dundas, da. of Sir Thomas Dundas, 2nd Bt.*, 1st Baron Dundas, 2s. 3da.

Offices Held

Lt.-col. commdt. Halifax regt. militia 1813.

Biography

Ramsden’s father, whose half-sister married Lord Rockingham, had voted regularly with the Rockingham party during a brief period in the House 1780-4. Ramsden himself, whose ‘ambition was always to be in Parliament’, was returned for Malton by Rockingham’s heir Earl Fitzwilliam at the first general election after his coming of age. His father had declined a similar offer on a vacancy in 1792. His marriage to the youngest daughter of Lord Dundas was opposed by his father ‘not from doubts of her perfection, but from a thorough conviction that it would be more advantageous to Mr Ramsden at a future period’. Sir John explained to Fitzwilliam, 31 Oct. 1813:

I have been always anxious that he should see as much of the world as possible before he fixed himself for ever, and have endeavoured in vain to prevail upon him to go abroad for that purpose ... Although from your unremitting kindness to Mr Ramsden you have seen much of him, yet there is a great impetuosity of temper which perhaps you may not have discovered; this I have no doubt time and experience will rectify; but such a reform is more likely to be effected by mixing with the world than being fixed at his early time of life in a matrimonial connexion.1

Although his objections produced a temporary disturbance they did not prevent the marriage from taking place.

In the House, Ramsden’s voting pattern was very similar to that of Fitzwilliam’s son, Viscount Milton, who had sponsored his membership of Brooks’s Club, 10 Feb. 1810. In 1817 Tierney placed him among Fitzwilliam’s friends who ‘will not I am afraid stir without a letter from him or Lord Milton’.2 His only significant divergence from Fitzwilliam’s political line was to vote with his brother-in-law Lawrence Dundas against the renewal of war, 7 and 28 Apr., 25 May 1815. He is not recorded as having spoken before 1820. He signed the requisition to Tierney to lead the opposition in 1818 and resigned his yeomanry commission on his patron’s dismissal from his lord lieutenancy in 1819. He died v.p. 29 Dec. 1836.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: J. M. Collinge

Notes

  • 1. Wentworth Woodhouse mun. F42/29; F83/1; Fitzwilliam mss, box 81.
  • 2. Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 4 Jan. 1817.