CLIVE, George (d.1779), of Wormbridge, Herefs.

In 1755 George Clive, having on 19 Mar. obtained permission from the directors of the East India Company,Court Bk. 66, p. 329. went out to India in the ‘family’ of Robert Clive. By 1757 he was acting as one of the agents for the army;Orme mss, xi. 25. in that year Clive estimated George’s probable fortune at between £15,000 and £20,000.Malcolm, Clive, ii. 162, quoting a letter of 9 Aug. from Clive to his father and to W. Belchier, 21 Aug. 1757, Clive mss. They returned in 1760, and in 1764 George joined the banking firm of Sir Francis Gosling and Co., of which he remained a partner till his death. The firm had already been handling a good deal of business in the ‘splitting’ of East India Company stock for Lord Clive, who in an undated letter to George wrote from India late in 1765: ‘The business of your shop will be greatly increased by the gentlemen coming home, Carnac, Call, Turner, Swinton, Gregory, and Dr. Fullarton, all men of great fortune, have promised me to do business with Sir Francis Gosling.’ George, replying on 16 May 1766, spoke well of his partners, but complained that the work was hard—he intended to give himself more leisure when in ‘full possession of that easy fortune I am now entitled to’.Clive mss. He remained a close friend of Clive; was one of his attorneys, transacting much of his business at East India House, and working in close touch with John Walsh and Luke Scrafton; and was an executor of, and a trustee under, Clive’s will.

In 1761 George Clive unsuccessfully contested Penryn on the interest of Francis Basset sen., to whom he paid £2,000, advanced by Robert Clive;G. Clive to Lord Clive, 13 Dec. 1765, Clive mss. and in 1763 he was returned, after a contest, on Clive’s interest at Bishop’s Castle. In the House he faithfully followed his cousin’s lead; supported the Grenville Administration, and voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act, 22 Feb. 1766. He wrote to Clive, 16 Feb. 1768:Ibid.

The parliamentary conduct you recommend has always been my wish to observe and which [sic] we have the same object in view there can be but little variety of sentiment; your honour and importance will ever be mine.

In 1768, and again in 1774, he was returned unopposed for Bishop’s Castle. By 1769 he, like his cousin, had gone over to the Opposition, and he regularly voted against the Administration till the autumn of 1772, when with Clive he went back to Administration. When he voted with the Opposition on the naval captains’ petition, 9 Feb. 1773, and Grenville’s Election Act, 25 Feb. 1774, he was marked in the King’s lists as a dissenting friend. He seems to have continued to support Administration after Lord Clive’s death; was marked as ‘pro, absent’ on the contractors bill, 12 Feb. 1779; and voted with Administration on Keppel, 3 Mar. 1779. There is no record of his having spoken in the House. He died 23 Mar. 1779.