ELIOT, Hon. William (1867-1845), of 58 Grosvenor Street, Mdx.

Eliot, whose active days as a diplomat and junior minister were behind him, was again returned for the family borough of Liskeard in 1820. He was an occasional attender who continued to give silent support to Lord Liverpool’s ministry. He voted in defence of their conduct towards Queen Caroline, 6 Feb. 1821. He divided against Catholic relief, 28 Feb. He voted against repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr., was in the minority for inquiry into the currency, 9 Apr., but voted for the duke of Clarence’s grant, 18 June. He divided against the disfranchisement of ordnance officials, 12 Apr., parliamentary reform, 9 May, and the forgery punishment mitigation bill, 21 May 1821. His last known vote was against more extensive tax reductions, 21 Feb. 1822. He was granted ten days’ leave to attend to private business, 18 Apr. 1822, and soon afterwards went to ‘reside a year or two on the continent’, leaving his affairs in the hands of his elder brother, Castlereagh Corresp. xii. 474-5. whom he succeeded to the peerage by special remainder in November 1823. He inherited the Port Eliot estate in Cornwall, but the bulk of the personalty, which was sworn under £45,000, went to the 1st earl’s widow, the residuary legatee (PROB 11/1683/180; IR26/1017/230). In the Lords, he supported the Wellington ministry’s Catholic emancipation bill in 1829. The death of his wife in 1830 made him a widower for the fourth time. He died in January 1845 and was succeeded by his only son, Edward Granville Eliot*, who achieved the political eminence which had eluded him. Gent. Mag. (1845), i. 429, 667.