DALSTON, Sir George, 4th Bt. (1718-65), of Dalston Hall, Cumb.

The two branches of the Dalston family, the senior of Dalston Hall, and the junior of Acorn Bank, descended from a common ancestor in the reign of Henry VIII.

In 1754 Sir George was returned unopposed for Westmorland on the interest of the Lowthers, to whom he was related, and at their expense: in Mrs. Lowther’s notebook there is an entry of £628 15s. 9d. paid for Dalston’s election.1B. Bonsall, Sir James Lowther, 15 n. 8. Dupplin classed him in 1754 as ‘doubtful’. When in 1756, on behalf of Sir James Lowther, Dalston ‘organized’ Sir William Fleming’s election for Cumberland, he was paid £200.2Ibid. 37. He did not stand again in 1761, by which time his financial difficulties were such that he sold Dalston Hall to a London grocer for £5,060. When in May 1762 Newcastle was about to relinquish office, Rockingham, also a relation of Dalston’s, inquired: ‘What will become of poor Sir George Dalston’s £200 per annum?’3Add. 32938, f. 261. And Dalston himself inquired of Thomas Ramsden, 30 Dec. 1762,4Jenkinson Pprs., 118. how he stood to that ‘small annuity’ which he had been receiving since Christmas 1761; out of what it was paid he did not know, but thought it was ‘quartered out of some place’.

Small as it is, I should be very sorry to lose it; and more so at this time when I have lost by the [Yorkshire] militia being disembodied, the pay, which was pretty considerable, as I had the honour to be a lieutenant-colonel.

The loss of the £200, wrote Ramsden in a covering letter,5Ramsden to Jenkinson, 3 Jan. 1763, ibid. 119. ‘will totally break his back I fear’, his finances being ‘greatly delabré’.

Dalston died 7 Mar. 1765.