BRAND, Thomas (1749-94), of The Hoo, Kimpton, Herts.

Brand first attempted to enter Parliament at the Cambridgeshire by-election of 1770. Recommended to Lord Hardwicke by the Duke of Bedford as a promising ‘Whig’, and by Lord Temple as a ‘young gentleman of great figure and fortune ... and of a generous and independent spirit’,Add. 35680, f. 267. he himself wrote: ‘A considerable part of my estate lies in that county [Cambridgeshire], and in the neighbourhood of it, which gives me a natural right to offer my services on the present occasion.’Ibid. f. 257. But the county considered him as ‘an entire stranger’,Sir John Hynde Cotton to Hardwicke, 28 Oct. 1770, ibid. f. 262. and Brand declined a few days before the poll, receiving £1000 compensation from Sir Sampson Gideon.Edw. Leeds to Hardwicke, 16 Nov. 1770, ibid. f. 283.

In 1774 Brand was returned unopposed at Arundel on the interest of the Duke of Norfolk.‘Tomkins Diary’, 37 (Suss. Arch. Colls. lxxi). He is known to have voted in only two divisions, on the Middlesex election, 22 Feb. 1775, and the Address, 26 Oct. 1775, each time in opposition. In a broadsheet published by J. Almon, 1780, recording 6 divisions between April 1777 and April 1780, he is described as ‘out of the kingdom’. There is no record of his having spoken in the House, and he did not stand in 1780. He was a candidate at the Cambridgeshire by-election of 1789: ‘I stand upon the most independent grounds’, he wrote to Philip Yorke, ‘and trust that I shall consequently be obnoxious to no party’,7 May 1789, Add. 35685, f. 51. but there was ‘such a unanimity’Sir John Hynde Cotton to Hardwicke, 4 May 1789. of support for the other candidate, James Whorwood Adeane, that Brand withdrew before the poll.

He died 21 Feb. 1794.