PROBY, Hon. Granville Leveson (1782-1868), of Glenart Castle, co. Wicklow.

Proby entered the navy and served at the Nile and Trafalgar. His father’s friends promoted him in 1806 and were about to award him an appointment in the court of Admiralty at St. Lucia when they were dismissed from office in 1807.1Add. 41857, f. 10; Buckingham, Court and Cabinets, iv. 159, 162. On 23 Feb. 1815 his father applied to Earl Fitzwilliam to support Proby’s candidature for county Wicklow, where the family had a significant interest and which his eldest brother had contested in 1801. Carysfort explained: ‘a ship in time of peace is mere idleness ... He would attend to the business of Parliament and both by reading and natural ability is not I think unqualified to be useful there.’ This application was premature, but later that year there was a vacancy. Fitzwilliam supported Proby who, he was sure, should be ‘a good Member’, but regarded him as his ‘pocket candidate’.2Wentworth Woodhouse mun. F82/8, 30. Proby was returned unopposed in absentia, being aboard the Aurelia bound for home on his last naval voyage.

Although Proby made no known speech in debate, he voted steadily with the Grenvillite opposition in the session of 1817, supporting the suspension of habeas corpus on 26 Feb.3Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 20 Jan. 1817; NLW, Coedymaen mss 12, f. 925. He voted for Catholic relief on 9 May. In 1818 he was in the opposition majority against the Duke of Clarence’s establishment, 15 Apr., and in the minority in favour of the repeal of the Septennial Act, 19 May. In the Parliament of 1818 he voted in the minorities for criminal law reform, 2 Mar. 1819, against the Admiralty board, 18 Mar., and on the affair of Wyndham Quin, 29 Mar. After being refused leave of absence, he voted for Catholic claims, 3 May, and then obtained leave.4CJ, lxxiv. 315; 380. He died 3 Nov. 1868.