Sir Thomas Sutton, 1st Baronet (c.1755–1813) was an English militia commander and politician, Member of Parliament for in 1812–13.

Life

He was the son of Thomas Sutton (died 1789) of

Molesey Molesey is a district of two twin towns, East Molesey and West Molesey, in the Borough of Elmbridge, Surrey, England, and is situated on the south bank of the River Thames. East and West Molesey share a high street, and there is a second retai ...

, Surrey, and his wife Jane Hankey, daughter of Alderman Thomas Hankey. He matriculated in 1773 at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1777, M.A. in 1780. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1782. ''The Trial of Mrs. Henrietta Arabin'' (1786), on the King's Bench case brought by

William St Julien Arabin William St Julien Arabin (177315 December 1841) was a British lawyer and judge who served as the Judge-Advocate-General of the Army for a three-and-a-half-month period (6 November 183821 February 1839). Early life Arabin was born abroad,''1841 ...

against his wife for adultery with Sutton, describes him as a major in the

Horse Guards Regiment In the British Army, the Horse Guards comprised several independent troops raised initially on the three different establishments. In the late 1660s, there were thus three troops in England, one in Ireland, and two in Scotland of which one was cer ...

Sutton was

High Sheriff of Surrey The list of known High Sheriffs of Surrey extends back to 1066. At various times the High Sheriff of Surrey was also High Sheriff of Sussex (1229–1231, 1232–1240, 1242–1567, 1571–1635). 1066–1228 (High Sheriffs of Surrey only) 1229– ...

in 1796–7, and commissioned with the rank of major in the

2nd Royal Surrey Militia The 2nd Royal Surrey Militia, later the 3rd Battalion, Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) was an auxiliary regiment raised in Surrey in the Home counties of England. From its formal creation in 1797 the regiment served in home defence in all of ...

in 1797; and supported the Pitt administration against a Whig petition at a Surrey county meeting that year. At the beginning of the 19th century, he was jointly

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

East Molesey Molesey is a district of two twin towns, East Molesey and West Molesey, in the Borough of Elmbridge, Surrey, England, and is situated on the south bank of the River Thames. East and West Molesey share a high street, and there is a second retai ...

, with Sir Beaumont Hotham, his uncle by marriage to Susanna Hankey, daughter of Alderman Hankey and sister of Jane Hankey. Sutton rose to be militia lieutenant-colonel in 1800. He was created a baronet on 5 March, 1806.

Mary Berry Dame Mary Rosa Alleyne Hunnings (; born 24 March 1935), known professionally as Mary Berry, is an English food writer, chef, baker and television presenter. After being encouraged in domestic science classes at school, she studied catering at ...

had dinner with Sutton and his wife on 21 September 1809. She wrote in her journal: "His conversation always remarkably sensible, and liberal-minded, and to the purpose." In the first days of the operation of the

Regency Act 1811 The Regency Acts are Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed at various times, to provide a regent in the event of the reigning monarch being incapacitated or a minor (under the age of 18). Prior to 1937, Regency Acts were passed onl ...

, the

Duke of Clarence Duke of Clarence is a substantive title which has been traditionally awarded to junior members of the British Royal Family. All three creations were in the Peerage of England. The title was first granted to Lionel of Antwerp, the second son ...

stated at a large dinner given by Sutton at Molesley in February 1811 that "The King is as mad as ever, but we have now shut the door and turned the key upon him." Standing in the two-member Surrey constituency in 1812 general election, Sutton was backed by

Sir John Frederick, 5th Baronet Sir John Frederick, 5th Baronet (1750–1825), was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1807. Early life Frederick was the only surviving son of Sir John Frederick, 4th Baronet of Burwood Park, Surrey, and his wif ...

, another Surrey Militia officer, and Viscount Cranley. He hoped to keep out the radical

Sir Thomas Turton, 1st Baronet ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

. He was standing as a friend of

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

, and his main concern before letting his name go forward was that the

11th Duke of Norfolk Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk (15 March 1746 – 16 December 1815), styled Earl of Surrey from 1777 to 1786, was a British nobleman, peer, and politician. He was the son of Charles Howard, 10th Duke of Norfolk and Catherine Brockho ...

, a proponent of Catholic rights, would fund Turton's campaign. In the event, known as an associate of

Lord Moira Francis Edward Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, (9 December 175428 November 1826), styled The Honourable Francis Rawdon from birth until 1762, Lord Rawdon between 1762 and 1783, The Lord Rawdon from 1783 to 1793 and The Earl of Moira b ...

and with the approval of George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer, he was comfortably elected in second place, behind the Tory George Holme Sumner, ahead of Turton backed by Sir Joseph Mawbey, 2nd Baronet and

Sir Mark Wood, 1st Baronet Sir Mark Wood, 1st Baronet (16 March 1750 – 6 February 1829) was a British army officer and engineer. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Milborne Port, Gatton and Newark. He received a baronetcy on 3 October 1808. Mark Wood was the eldest ...

. In parliament in 1813 he opposed

Catholic relief The Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom to remove the restrictions and prohibitions impose ...

while the

Napoleonic wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

continued.

Family

Sutton married in 1790 Lucy, daughter of

Thomas Assheton Smith (1752–1828) Thomas Assheton Smith (the elder) (1752 – 12 May 1828) was an English landowner and all-round sportsman who played a major part in the development of the Slate industry in Wales, Welsh slate industry. Life Smith was the eldest son of Th ...

. They had two daughters. The baronetcy became extinct on Sutton's death on 6 November 1813. Of the daughters, Lucy married George Berkeley. The other daughter, Caroline Mary Selina (Carolina), married in 1816 Angelo D'Ambrosio (1774–1822), a Neapolitan general and diplomat, who participated in the 1820 revolution. Sutton's elder brother John Sutton RN married Frances Hotham, daughter of Beaumont Hotham in a

cousin marriage A cousin marriage is a marriage where the spouses are cousins (i.e. people with common grandparents or people who share other fairly recent ancestors). The practice was common in earlier times, and continues to be common in some societies toda ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutton, Thomas 1750s births 1813 deaths Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies