GASCOIGNE, Sir Thomas, 8th Bt. (1745-1810), of Parlington, Yorks.

Gascoigne, one of Earl Fitzwilliam’s Whig friends in Yorkshire, was chairman of the tentative county committee to promote his party’s revenge at the next general election, appointed on 6 Nov. 1788. Charles Anderson Pelham was prepared to sponsor his election for Beverley, if he could, but by March 1789 had given up the idea because ‘Popery, and all that sort of nonsense’ was objected against Gascoigne, a convert from Rome since 1780. He did not find a seat until, in 1795, the 11th Duke of Norfolk, a fellow convert, returned him on a vacancy for Arundel. He was a silent opponent of Pitt’s administration, voting for Fox’s censure motion, 24 Mar. 1795, and for Wilberforce’s motion in favour of peace, 27 May. After taking a fortnight’s leave on 2 June, he reappeared to vote against the seditious meetings bill, 27 Nov. 1795. On 1 Dec. he chaired the opposition meeting to petition against the bills at York. He did not stand at the general election of 1796.

Gascoigne died 11 Feb. 1810, having ‘been in a declining state for some time past’.1See YORKSHIRE; Fitzwilliam mss, boxes 39 and 40, Anderson Pelham to Fitzwilliam, 31 July 1788, 31 Mar. 1789; Gent. Mag. (1810), i. 189; The Times, 7 Dec. 1795; Wyvill, Pol. Pprs. v. 303, 311.