Sir Robert Bernard, 5th Baronet

Sir Robert Bernard, 5th Baronet (1740–1789) was an English politician, Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire and Westminster.[1][2]

Life

He was the only son of Sir John Bernard, 4th Baronet and his wife Mary St. John, daughter of Sir Francis St John, 1st Baronet of Longthorpe. He was educated at Westminster School, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1758.[1][3][2]

Member of Parliament

Bernard came into the House of Commons in 1765 for Huntingdonshire uncontested under a local electoral deal, after Lord Charles Montagu gave up his seat there to take an American colonial post.[4] In parliament he was a Rockingham Whig.[2] On the death of his father in 1766, Bernard succeeded as 5th Baronet.[1]

The electoral pact unravelled shortly in the two-seat constituency of Huntingdonshire. Bernard fell out with his patron George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester, and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich announced he would now back two candidates. Nevertheless, Bernard put himself forward as a candidate in the 1768 general election. He placed third in the poll, behind Sandwich's son John Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke and his other choice Peter Ludlow, Earl Ludlow.[4]

In the sequel Bernard's politics shifted in a radical and reformist direction. Sandwich took the view that he had come under the influence of Lord Shelburne. Moving to London, he became a Wilkite, and was a founder of the Society of Gentlemen Supporters of the Bill of Rights. When a vacancy occurred in the House of Commons during 1770 for Westminster, Edwin Sandys having moved to the House of Lords, Bernard was elected unopposed with the backing of William Dowdeswell, Rockinghamite leader in the Commons.[2]

Reformer at large

At the 1774 general election, Bernard lost his seat Huntingdonshire seat to Lord Thomas Pelham Clinton. It followed a schism in the Wilkites, in which John Horne and John Sawbridge with Bernard left the Bill of Rights Society to found their own Constitutional Society. Lord North brought in both the 2nd Duke of Newcastle, father of Lord Thomas, and the 5th Duke of Bedford, to reclaim the Westminister seat for the government.[5] In the meantime, however, Bernard took advantage of resentment in the Bedford borough at high-handed behaviour of the 4th Duke of Bedford; he was elected recorder there in 1771, after the 4th Duke's death, the group of honorary freemen of the borough having been stacked with his supporters, including Horne, Sawbridge and James Townsend.[2][6]

In the 1774 election, and for the rest of his life, Bernard had a significant interest in Bedford borough, and its two seats in parliament; John Horne acted as his electoral agent. That year they brought in Sir William Wake, 8th Baronet and Robert Sparrow, married to Bernard's sister Mary, ahead of Samuel Whitbread and John Howard. Close scrutiny of the votes later resulted in Sparrow being replaced in March 1775 by Whitbread.[6][7]

The Huntingdonshire moderate reformist group of Bernard, Lord Carysfort and John Jebb had national connections to Christopher Wyvill's Yorkshire Association, opposed to the American Revolutionary War, from 1780, though with reservations on policy; and later to Major John Cartwright.[2][8] Wake was re-elected for Bedford in 1780, but stood down for the 1784 general election. John Horne, by then going by John Horne Tooke, ensured that the planter William MacDowall Colhoun stood for the Bernard interest, a contentious choice, at a difficult London meeting held in the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street.[6][9]

Death and legacy

Suffering in the 1780s from gout, Sir Robert Bernard died on 2 January 1789, unmarried, at Brampton Park. He left his property to his nephew Robert Bernard Sparrow, son of Robert Sparrow and his sister Mary.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c "Bernard, Robert (?1739-89), of Brampton, Hunts., History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Hollis, Daniel Webster, III. "Bernard, Sir Robert, fifth baronet (1740–1789)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39687.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ Foster, Joseph (1888–1891). "Bernard, Sir Robert, Bart." . Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: James Parker – via Wikisource.
  4. ^ a b "Huntingdonshire 1754-1790, History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  5. ^ "Westminster 1754-1790, History of Parliament Online". historyofparliamentonline.org.
  6. ^ a b c "1754-1790, History of Parliament Online". historyofparliamentonline.org.
  7. ^ "Sparrow, Robert (1741-1822), of Worlingham, Suff., History of Parliament Online". historyofparliamentonline.org.
  8. ^ Black, Eugene Charlton (1963). The Association: British Extraparliamentary Political Organization, 1769-1793. Harvard University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-674-05000-6. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  9. ^ Timbs, John (1872). Clubs and Club Life in London: With Anecdotes of Its Famous Coffee Houses, Hostelries, and Taverns, from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Time. Hotten. p. 541.
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