EVERETT, Thomas (1740-1810), of Biddesden House, nr. Andover, Hants.

Everett, who obtained a grant of arms in 1792, owed his prosperity to the Wiltshire cloth trade, being a Blackwell Hall factor at Lawrence Lane, London from about 1770. He had two brothers in Wiltshire who were clothiers, so he informed the House, 5 May 1800. One was partner in a bank at Warminster by 1783. In 1785 he was a co-founder of the bank of Newnham, Everett, Drummond, Tibbets and Tanner of 65 Lombard Street, later Everett & Co. of 9 Mansion House Street (1791). After his death the partnership, which included his brother William and his son Joseph Hague Everett, was known as Everett, Walker, Maltby, Ellis & Co. from 1812 until 1825, when it failed.2Hilton Price, London Bankers, 58.

Everett purchased the Biddesden estate near Ludgershall, formerly the basis of the Webb family’s electoral interest there. In 1790 he attacked the negligent patron George Augustus Selwyn, putting up his banking partners the Drummonds. They did not then succeed; neither, on Selwyn’s death, did he succeed in inducing Selwyn’s heir, the 1st Viscount Sydney, to sell out to him, nor, in the ensuing by-election, could he secure the return of another partner, Nathaniel Newnham. But he so harassed Sydney by petition that a compromise ensued in 1793. In 1796 he replaced Newnham as Member on his own interest unopposed, secure in his moiety of the borough for the rest of his life.3See LUDGERSHALL.

Everett’s politics did not differ from those of the family he had dislodged. A member of the Loyal Livery of London,4The Times, 29 May 1797. he signed the merchants’ declaration in support of Pitt’s administration, 2 Dec. 1795. On 1 June 1797 he voted for the dividend on the loyalty loan, to which he had subscribed £10,000 and his firm £50,000. He also invested in East India Company Stock. He supported the assessed taxes, 4 Jan. 1798, defended the commercial articles of the Irish union against those who supposed they would damage the English woollen manufacturers, 1 May 1800, and on 5 May denied that much Spanish wool was used by Wiltshire clothiers. It is the only subject on which he is known to have spoken. He had taken care to reassure Pitt on the subject.5PRO 30/8/133, f. 249. He Voted with opposition on the defence divisions of 23 and 25 Apr. 1804 which brought down Addington’s ministry. He was listed a supporter of Pitt’s second ministry in September 1804 and July 1805, having voted in the minority against the censure on Melville, 8 Apr. Yet he supported the Grenville ministry’s repeal of Pitt’s Additional Force Act, 30 Apr. 1806. He was listed as adverse to the abolition of the slave trade. He rallied to Perceval’s ministry on the address and on the Scheldt question, 23 and 26 Jan. 1810.

Everett died 8 Feb. 1810, in his 70th year, at his town house, 19 Bedford Square. His son succeeded to his seat. As vice-president of the Foundling Hospital, he was buried in its chapel. His estate was valued at £100,000.6Gent. Mag. (1810), i. 188; PCC 129 Collingwood; probate act bk. 1810.