One of the seminal moments of Pulteney’s career occurred at the end of the parliamentary session on 31 May 1725 when he was dismissed from his post as cofferer of the household, on account of his opposition earlier in the session, most notably over the Civil List bill. There followed a period of opposition which ended only with the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole from the Treasury on 3 February 1742. Pulteney then entered the Cabinet, but consistent with his oft-repeated pledge not to take office, he did not take an administrative post. On 14 July, the penultimate day of the 1741-2 session, he was raised to the earldom of Bath, taking his seat in the Lords on the following day.

Pulteney lost a lot of popularity when entering the House of Lords, and he failed twice to attain major office in the years following: he was overlooked in favour of Henry Pelham, as first lord of the Treasury, upon the death of the earl of Wilmington in July 1743 and failed to construct a ministry when the Pelhams and most of their colleagues resigned in February 1746. From then on, his political career is deemed to have been over and he spent his time in ‘retirement’.

However, there was another side to Pulteney, related to the accumulation of power and influence. On the very day he took his seat in the Lords, a bill to prevent the marriage of lunatics received the royal assent. This was managed through the Commons by Pulteney’s long-term associate Phillips Gybbon and served to offer some protection to Pulteney’s investment in the reversion of the estates of the Newport, earls of Bradford.

The heir to the estates of Pulteney’s friend, Henry Newport, 3rd earl of Bradford (1683-1734) was Bradford’s illegitimate son, John Newport, whose mother Ann Smyth was on her deathbed. The reversion of Bradford’s estates had been granted to Pulteney (in return for paying for Newport’s maintenance and the debts of the third earl). Now Newport could not be married off by unscrupulous operators for the estates. Similarly, the third earl’s brother, Thomas Newport, who succeeded to the title as 4th earl of Bradford, was a certified lunatic.

The Bradford estates were destined for Pulteney’s son, William, Viscount Pulteney, who pre-deceased his father in June 1763. Sir Lewis Namier detailed the battle waged by Bath to become lord lieutenant of Shropshire following the accession of George III. Bath used his connexions with the new king and John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, to overcome the claims of his rival, Henry Arthur Herbert, created Baron Herbert of Chirbury in 1743 and promoted earl of Powys in 1748. In 1736 when Ann Smyth had petitioned for a bill to allow her son (at the time known as John Harrison) to be adopt the surname Newport, the first two-names on the drafting committee were Herbert and Pulteney, with Herbert managing the bill through the House.

The death of Viscount Pulteney did not end Bath’s interest in the Bradford estates. On 21 March 1764 a bill received the royal assent allowing the guardians of John Newport to make leases of his estates during his lunacy. It was managed through the Lords by Pulteney’s ally, Samuel Sandys, Baron Sandys, and through the Commons by John Rushout, the future Baron Northwick (son of Pulteney’s friend, Sir John Rushout, 4th bt.).

Bath turned 80 on 22 March, but continued to exhibit considerable vigour, sitting on eight of the 18 days remaining in the session, including on 2 April despite being begged by Lady Elizabeth Montagu ‘not to lose all this lovely morning in the House of Lords’ [https://emco.swansea.ac.uk/emco/letter-view/1297/]. Following the end of the session, Bath travelled to Shropshire, where he reviewed the militia at the end of May. Upon his return to London, he fell asleep in a garden, caught a fever and died on 7 July 1764.

The dynastic implications of Bath’s actions become clear if we look beyond the contemporary criticism levelled at him for leaving his estate to his elderly brother, General Harry Pulteney. In fact, the descent of the estates followed the intentions laid down by Henry Guy in his will of 1711 (which provided the basis of Bath’s wealth). Guy’s list of remainders ended with the male heirs of Daniel Pulteney, Bath’s cousin.

The ultimate beneficiary in 1767 was Frances Pulteney, daughter of Daniel and the wife of William Johnstone, who took the name Pulteney after Frances succeeded to the Pulteney estates. This William Pulteney succeeded his brother (Sir James Johnstone) as 5th baronet in 1794 and spent over 30 years as MP for Shrewsbury. His daughter and heir, Henrietta, was created successively Baroness Bath (1792) and countess of Bath (1803). Upon her marriage to Sir James Murray, 7th bt. in 1794 he also took the name Pulteney.

SNH

If Sir Spencer Compton is much remembered at all, it is most probably as the man who missed his chance to replace Sir Robert Walpole as Prime Minister on the death of George I in 1727. Characterizations of him both then and now have tended to emphasize his pompous, ineffectual character – an aristocratic parliamentarian who lacked the instinct to carry him to the top.

In many ways, such a portrait is thoroughly unfair. Compton was undoubtedly rather pompous, and he was certainly not as wily a political operator as Walpole. But he was a political survivor and, most importantly perhaps, an effective and knowledgeable Speaker of the House of Commons for a dozen years. Presiding in Parliament was where he was most comfortable and once in a while even the stately Compton allowed his guard down sufficiently to show that beneath the full-bottomed wig he was capable of an occasional dramatic turn.

Another way in which Compton stood out was in choosing to become a Whig, while the majority of his family were firm Tories. He owed his original return to Parliament as MP for Eye in Suffolk to the 4th Lord Cornwallis, but also seems to have been a protégé of the Junto Whig leader Lord Somers. After 12 years, Compton took a break from Parliament, having fallen out with Cornwallis. He may also have been keen to avoid the 1710 election as he had been prominent as one of the MPs leading the prosecution of the Tory firebrand Henry Sacheverell. He made a return in 1713, being elected for East Grinstead thanks to the sponsorship of his relative the earl of Dorset, and in 1715 was chosen Speaker. His unanimous election was greeted with pleasure back in his native Sussex:

After the Great satisfaction your friends in this county have in your being chosen their Representative by such a majority, nothing can be more pleasing to them than the August assembly of the Nation’s [unanimous] choice of the same Gentleman for their Speaker in which I heartily wish you health and prosperity.

Chatsworth Muniments, Compton Place papers, 18/26

Compton holds the minor distinction of being the only Speaker of the House of Commons to have been educated at St Paul’s School. More pertinently, he was able to draw on his previous experience as chairman of the committee of privileges and elections as well as his naturally encyclopaedic mind to forge an identity as a hugely knowledgeable presiding officer. He also brought to the role a certain aristocratic hauteur – his brother, after all, was earl of Northampton.

Once in a while, Compton allowed himself to show off his powers of rhetoric, most notably at the conclusion of the impeachment of Thomas Parker, earl of Macclesfield, when he applauded the managers for their public service. This, though, does appear to have been a rare show of emotion.

All the time Compton was building a reputation as a steady and dependable Speaker, he also maintained his profile as an influential force at Court and in the ministry. In 1722 he was appointed paymaster general, which enabled him to amass a small fortune, though he was apparently annoyed not to have been given something better. A close associate of the Prince of Wales (George II) he had expected to benefit more obviously from the healing of the Whig schism and the steady rise of Walpole. They had been extremely close before 1720; after Walpole became Prime Minister Compton turned against him and by the end of the decade was effectively an enemy.

The death of George I in the summer of 1727 brought to an end Compton’s time as Speaker. George II had intended him to take over as Prime Minister, but Compton lost his nerve and turned to Walpole to help him with certain key pieces of business. The king (prompted by Queen Caroline) realized Compton was not up to the task and Walpole carried on. It is telling, though, that Walpole did not trust Compton to stay on as Speaker and become a potential rival in the Commons. Consequently, Compton was elevated to the Lords in January 1728 as Baron Wilmington and two years later shuffled from paymaster to lord privy seal, and then moved on again to lord president.

In 1742 the fall of Walpole finally offered Wilmington a second chance at inhabiting the role of Prime Minister, though in effect he was merely a figurehead for an administration run by Lord Carteret. The change of ministry was satirised in a publication that year, with Wilmington appearing as ‘Old Will with the Spencer Wig’:

without Bustle, Envy or Opposition, he drudges quietly on in the Road of Business, and, tho’ never foremost, may perhaps make as much way in the Acquisition of what he seeks as any other…

Wilmington was one of just three former Speakers to become PM (the others being William Grenville and Henry Addington), if one discounts Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, who had been Speaker before becoming lord high treasurer under Queen Anne. He did not hold office long, dying the following year after having spent most of his tenure unwell and on the verge of resigning through ill health.

Wilmington is easily overlooked as someone who failed to displace Walpole, and then emerged as a powerless compromise candidate while other more weighty politicians fought it out for supremacy, but his longevity should not be discounted. First elected when William III was on the throne, he became a significant political broker in his native Sussex and a well-regarded, if rather pompous, parliamentarian who inhabited the Speaker’s chair for a dozen years. As one of a group of senior figures at the heart of the Hanoverian regime it is perhaps time to reappraise Wilmington and others like him at Westminster.

RDEE

Further reading:

The New-Comers: or, the Characters of John the Carter, Sandy Long-bie, Daniel Raven and Old Will with the Spencer Wig (1742)

Robin Eagles, ‘Spencer Compton, earl of Wilmington’, in Iain Dale, ed. The Prime Ministers (2020)

Listen to Dr Eagles discussing Wilmington as part of Iain Dale’s podcast ‘The Prime Ministers’ here, or search for it wherever you get your podcasts!