Sir John St Aubyn, MP, 4th Baronet

Family and Education b. 12 Nov. 1726, 1st s. of Sir John St. Aubyn, 3rd Bt., M.P., by Catherine, da. of Sir Nicholas Morice, 2nd Bt., M.P., sis. and coh. of Sir William Morice. 3rd Bt., M.P. educ. Oriel, Oxf. 1744. m. 4 June 1756, Elizabeth, da. of William Wingfield of Washington, co. Dur., 1s. 5da. suc. fa. Aug. 1744. One sis. of his m. John Buller sen., another Sir John Molesworth, 5th Bt., and a third Francis Basset of Tehidy.

Offices Held

Biography Returned at Launceston on the interest of his uncle Sir William Morice, M.P., St. Aubyn was classed as Tory. He had ‘many friends’ in the borough,1 and apparently proposed to stand in 1754.2 Humphry Morice, who had succeeded to the Morice estates, however, had assured Henry Pelham that he would not support St. Aubyn,3 who desisted. He contested the borough in December 1758, was returned, but unseated on petition. When in October 1760 Edward Boscawen declared his candidature for Cornwall, and Sir John Molesworth declined standing again, the Tory country gentlemen felt that such changes should not be made without the opinion of the county having been taken, and at a second county meeting on 3 Nov., St. Aubyn stepped into Molesworth’s place.4 After Boscawen’s death, 10 Jan. 1761, St. Aubyn was returned unopposed, as he was again in 1768. He continued to be listed as a Tory; is not in Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries; but did not vote against them; voted against general warrants, 15 and 18 Feb. 1764, but was listed by Jenkinson as normally a Government supporter. He was classed by Rockingham in the summer of 1765 as an opponent, but did not vote against the repeal of the Stamp Act. He naturally voted against the Government over the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767; but was absent from the division on the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768. Every known vote by him in the Parliament of 1768 was with the Opposition: on Wilkes and the Middlesex election, the Address (January 1770), and the Spanish convention. He even attended the Opposition dinner on 9 May 1769. But he seems never to have spoken in the House.

He died 12 Oct. 1772.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790 Author: Sir Lewis Namier Notes 1. Namier, Structure, 301. 2. Robt. Dannan to Nat. Carpenter, 24 Jan. 1754, Wharncliffe mss. 3. Add. 32727, f. 243. 4. W. Stackhouse to Jas. Buller, Buller mss.