COXE, Henry Hippisley (1748-95), of Ston Easton, Som.

There was no contest when Hippisley Coxe, like his late brother, came in for Somerset, but government was said to have ‘obstructed’ his election. The Marquess of Buckingham informed Pitt (4 Sept. 1792) that Coxe would ‘probably mark his sense of that obstruction by a steady opposition’, though he ‘would have sworn allegiance if he had been properly called upon. As matters now stand, he is tied to nothing except to oppose T. Paine.’1PRO 30/8/117, f. 51. He did not oppose administration at first, but in 1794-5 voted five times with opposition: against the transportation of the radicals Muir and Palmer, 26 Feb. 1794; against indemnifying the landing of allied troops, 14 Mar.; for Wilberforce’s peace amendment, 30 Dec., in the same sense on Grey’s motion, 26 Jan. 1795, and against the imperial loan, 5 Feb. On the penultimate occasion he said that ‘he had formerly given his support to ministers, on the ground that it would add to the vigour and success of their measures, but he thought that the motion made today was so candid and fair, that he should certainly vote for it’. No other speech can with any certainty be attributed to him. On 19 May 1795 he took a month’s leave of the House for the recovery of his health.

He died without issue, 1 Aug. 1795, leaving his estate to his wife who was, it seems, ‘of masculine character, having at some time or other expressed a wish to be made a justice of the peace’, with remainder to his nephew Henry Hippisley. The widow facilitated the return of the estates to the family that originally owned them by marrying (Sir) John Coxe Hippisley.2Glenbervie Diaries, i. 182; PCC 111 Harris; A. Hippisley, Hippisley Fam. 119, 139.