POWLETT, Lord William (c.1667-1729), of St. James’s, London.

One of the spokesmen in the Commons for the Whig lords of the Junto under Queen Anne, Powlett obtained a lucrative sinecure at George I’s succession. Returned in 1715 for Winchester on the interest of his brother, the 2nd Duke of Bolton, he voted with the Administration in every recorded division, introducing a motion for laying heavier penalties on the Earl of Oxford in 1717 and speaking for the peerage bill in 1719. In 1721 he spoke in favour of bringing in a bill to allow the Quakers to affirm. In 1725 he opposed the restitution of Bolingbroke’s estates, introducing a motion to prevent him sitting in either House or holding any office under the Crown. In March 1728 a bill was passed to discharge him from liability for £4,191 which had been stolen from his office as one of the tellers of the Exchequer in 1724.1CJ, xviii. 61, 63, 70, 262; Add. 36136, ff. 213-18, 233. He died 25 Sept. 1729, aged 62.