AMCOTTS, Charles (1729-77), of Harrington and Kettlethorpe, Lincs.

Expelled from Cambridge for drinking the Pretender’s health, Amcotts not surprisingly appears in Newcastle’s election lists of 1754, and in Dupplin’s list of Members, as a Tory. In October 1760 Newcastle described him as ‘the head’ of the Tory country gentlemen raising an opposition in the county. And on 20 Dec. 1760 Lord Monson wrote to Newcastle:Add. 32916, f. 302. ‘Yesterday Mr. Amcotts told me he has quite given up Boston, that I much fear he intends to disturb us at Lincoln.’ He did not stand for either at the general election; but was again returned unopposed for Boston at the by-election of December 1766. In Rockingham’s list of November 1766 he appears as ‘Tory, Bute’; in Townshend’s of January 1767 ‘Rockingham, country gentleman’; and in Newcastle’s of 2 Mar. 1767 ‘Tory’. In two out of the three division lists on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, he is marked as voting against Administration. But in divisions between 1768 and his death, Amcotts appears in almost every list of Government supporters and never with Opposition; and is always classed as ‘pro’ by Robinson. John Lee wrote to William Eden, 11 Oct. 1772:Add. 34412, f. 189. ‘While I was at Harrogate I met with Mr. Amcotts, a Lincolnshire Member, a most furious courtier, I need not add, formerly a most notorious Jacobite.’ Furious and notorious Amcotts may have been, but there is no record of his having spoken in the House. He died 14 Apr. 1777.Maddison, Lincs. Peds.; London Mag. gives 20 Apr.