VYNER, Robert (c.1685-1777), of Gautby, Lincs.

In 1754 Vyner was returned unopposed for Lincolnshire and Dupplin listed both him and his son as Opposition Whigs. On 10 Dec. 1755 Vyner senior supported Pitt and his group in opposition to the Russian and Hessian subsidy treaties, and on 14 Jan. 1757 he is mentioned by Newdigate as present at a meeting at George Townshend’s which consisted almost entirely of Tory country gentlemen and discussed the line they should take on the Minorca inquiry.Newdigate’s diary, Newdigate mss, Warws. RO. On 14 June 1758 the two Vyners were with George Townshend, Edward Montagu, and Thomas Staunton, in a minority of five against an increase of the judges’ salaries;Add. 32880, f. 470. and on 26 Jan. 1759 Vyner opposed Pitt’s motion for a subsidy for the King of Prussia as a monstrous expense—‘we should soon be doing the same for the Queen of Hungary’—and ‘gave a single negative’ to the question.Add. 32887, ff. 351, 355; Walpole to Conway, 28 Jan. 1759.

After a partnership of twenty years with Thomas Whichcot, Vyner, on 30 Oct. 1760, let himself be put up against him by the Tory country gentlemen on a joint interest with Sir John Thorold; but when the tide turned against them, he wrote to Newcastle, 12 Nov., that he ‘was in no manner the cause’ of the division in the county, and requested ‘the continuance of your favours’.Add. 32914, f. 297. About the middle of January 1761 he withdrew from the contest, and did not stand again.

Vyner died 10 Apr. 1777.