SAVILE, John, 1st Baron Pollington [I] (1719-78), of Methley Hall, Leeds

Savile was defeated at Wigan in 1754; did not stand at the general election of 1761; and on Newcastle’s recommendation was returned at a by-election for New Shoreham.

There are five letters from him in Newcastle’s papers,Add. 32936, ff. 150, 397; 32937, f. 408; 32938, f. 52; 32942, f. 95. four written during Newcastle’s last month at the Treasury, all requesting a step-up in the Irish peerage. For a while he adhered to Newcastle after his resignation, and voted against the peace preliminaries; but later seems to have supported Grenville’s Administration: it is not clear which way he voted on the division of 15 Nov. 1763, but on 6 Feb. 1764 he voted with the court. He appears in none of the lists of the division on general warrants of 18 Feb. 1764, and presumably voted with the majority. In July 1765 Rockingham classed him ‘pro’, and it was from the Rockingham Administration that he received his Irish earldom. (Yet, although a Yorkshireman, he is hardly ever mentioned in Rockingham’s correspondence, and played no part in Yorkshire politics.) In November 1766 Rockingham classed him as ‘Whig’ but with a query; he does not appear in Townshend’s list of January 1767; and in March 1767 was classed by Newcastle as ‘friend’. He did not vote on the land tax 27 Feb. 1767 or the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768. He does not appear to have spoken in the House, nor to have stood again in 1768.

He died 12 Feb. 1778.