HILDYARD, Sir Robert, 2nd Bt. (c.1670-1729), of Winestead in Holderness, Yorks.

Hildyard’s grandfather (a younger brother of Henry Hildyard†), a colonel in the Royalist army during the first Civil War, purged the corporation of Hedon as a commissioner for corporations in 1662, and purchased Winestead, some ten miles from Hedon, from a nephew. Succeeding his grandfather while still a minor, Hildyard was serving as a deputy-lieutenant for the East Riding in March 1701. He was chosen at the second general election of 1701 for Hedon, which his family had represented since Elizabethan times, his return being classed as a ‘gain’ by Lord Spencer (Charles*), probably on the grounds that Hildyard replaced a known Tory, Sir Robert Bedingfield, as MP for the borough. On 16 Feb. 1702 Hildyard told for an amendment to the mutiny bill prohibiting army officers from keeping greyhounds or setting dogs. He was otherwise inactive, and did not stand for election again, spending his time instead in farming and arboriculture. He died on 30 Nov. 1729 and was buried at Winestead. His nephew, the third baronet, sat for Great Bedwyn in George III’s reign.2 Poulson, Holderness, ii. 221; G. R. Park, Hedon, 93–94; CSP Dom. 1700–2, p. 253; N. J. Miller, Winestead and its Lords, 157–8; Clay, 335.