BATHURST, Hon. Benjamin (1711-67), of Siddington, nr. Cirencester, Glos.

When Benjamin Bathurst was returned for Gloucestershire on the Tory interest in 1734, the first of the family to represent the county, his father Lord Bathurst was ‘very proud of our victory’.1Wentworth Pprs., 507. He voted consistently with the Opposition. In February 1741 he was one of the Tories who withdrew on the motion for Walpole’s removal, which his father supported in the Lords.2HMC Egmont Diary, iii. 192. He did not stand at the next two general elections.

In August 1753 he offered himself as a candidate for Cirencester at the impending general election, ‘standing entirely upon my own interest, as a neighbouring gentleman, independently of any other person’,3The Cirencester Contest (1753), pp. 10-11, Gloucester City Lib. i.e. of Lord Bathurst, who renominated his younger son, Henry, dissociating himself from Benjamin’s candidature. In December he joined with a Whig candidate, John Dawnay, brother of Lord Downe, another neighbouring landowner. On this Henry and two other candidates, John Coxe and Thomas Master, withdrew, leaving Benjamin and Dawnay to be returned unopposed.4Add. 32733, f. 610. He died v.p. 23 Jan. 1767.