Charles Wilkinson (1725-1782), was a British politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

between 1774 and 1777, during which time he was judged insane. Wilkinson was the son of Andrew Wilkinson, MP for Aldborough and his wife Barbara Jessop. He was admitted at Pembroke College, Cambridge on 2 July 1742, and entered

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

on 23 July 1742. He was called to the bar in 1749. Wilkinson's father was estate agent to the

Duke of Newcastle Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle ...

and Charles helped his father in managing the Duke's pocket boroughs of Aldborough and

Boroughbridge Boroughbridge () is a town and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is north-west of the county town of York. Until a bypass was built the town lay on t ...

. In 1774 he was returned as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for Aldborough. By May 1775 Wilkinson had suffered a mental breakdown. and on 8 September was confined under the care of Dr. Willis. The Duke was at pains to get him to resign his seat, and the question was whether he was actually sane enough to resign from Parliament. In 1776 when he was asked, he could not be prevailed upon to give any direct answer. Instead he made confused remarks that “his consent signified nothing about his seat in Parliament, but that he would never go again either into the House of Commons or to London - all he wished for was a safe retirement”. With the consent of Charles's friends, it was concluded that the Duke was at full liberty to proceed as he intended and the seat was vacated in 1777. Wilkinson died in March 1782.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Charles 1725 births 1782 deaths Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Members of the Middle Temple Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1774–1780