DAMER, Hon. Lionel (1748-1807), of Came House, Dorset.

Damer, who joined the Whig Club on 3 Feb. 1786 like his elder brother, followed his parliamentary patron Earl Fitzwilliam’s line in politics and at first continued to oppose Pitt after 1790. He voted with opposition on Grey’s Oczakov resolutions, 12 Apr. 1791, and on the Russian armament, 1 Mar. 1792. He was listed a supporter of repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791. He further voted, but ‘against his sentiments’, for Fox’s amendment to the address, 13 Dec. 1792.1Malmesbury Diaries, ii. 476. He was listed a Portland Whig that month and thought of for Windham’s ‘third party’ in February 1793. He subsequently joined the Portland Whigs in giving a general support to government during the war. Fox could not persuade him to support his censure of the imperial loan, 14 Dec. 1796,2Fitzwilliam mss, X516/32, Fox to Fitzwilliam, 10 Dec. [1796]. but as a friend of Fitzwilliam he voted with opposition on the state of Ireland, 3 Mar. 1797, 14 and 22 June 1798. He had supported government on the assessed taxes, 4 Jan. 1798. He is not known to have spoken in the House. Ill health seems to have affected his attendance and determined his retirement before the election of 1802. He wrote to his patron, 21 Feb. 1802, thanking him for his ‘goodness and civility’ in bringing him into Parliament for Peterborough, and hoped that he might ‘with care’, recover his health.3Ibid. box 60. He died 28 May 1807 of election fever, having ‘overheated himself ... in the zeal of his support of Bankes’ in the contest for Dorset.4Fortescue mss, Fremantle to Grenville, 30 May 1807.