PELHAM, George (1635-86), of Gray’s Inn.

Pelham’s great-grandfather, a younger son of the Sussex family, became a distinguished Elizabethan soldier and acquired Brocklesby. His grandfather sat for Lincolnshire in 1597. During the Civil War his father fought for the King until his death, but his uncle Henry, who represented Grantham in the Long Parliament, was a moderate Parliamentarian.

Pelham’s elder brother Charles stood unsuccessfully for Grimsby, nine miles from Brocklesby, as a country candidate against William Broxholme in 1673, and when Pelham himself was first returned in 1679, apparently in his absence and unopposed, he was classed as ‘honest’ by Shaftesbury. But he took no known part in the first Exclusion Parliament, and probably paired with Broxholme for the division on the bill. He improved his interest by becoming high steward of the borough, and was moderately active as a committeeman in the second Exclusion Parliament. He was added to the committee to prepare evidence against the lords in the Tower on 12 Nov. 1680, and appointed to those to bring in a bill for street improvements in the capital and to print the manuscripts of (Sir) Matthew Hale. In the Oxford Parliament he was named only to the committee of elections and privileges. He did not stand again, and died in his lodgings in Holborn on 16 Dec. 1686, leaving a ‘very considerable’ estate in Kent and Buckinghamshire to his elder brother. His nephew Charles was returned for Grimsby as a Tory in 1722.3J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 149, 151; Keeler, Long Parl. 299; PCC 27 Foot.