Thomas Postlethwaite was a British politician. One of " Lord Lonsdale's ninepins", he represented the

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south west Surrey, England, around south west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill, they comprise the civil parish of Haslemere i ...

, in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, from 1784 to 1786. Postlethwaite's identity is uncertain. He may have been the son of Rev. James Postlethwaite of Fleckney,

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

, or a member of a Cumberland family. He was a client of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, a peer notorious for his attempts to control Parliamentary representation in the northwest of England, and who had bought up the

burgage Burgage is a medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property ("burgage tenement ...

s at Haslemere in 1780 to obtain sole control over its elections. Returned by Lonsdale in the

1784 British general election The 1784 British general election resulted in William Pitt the Younger securing an overall majority of about 120 in the House of Commons of Great Britain, having previously had to survive in a House which was dominated by his opponents. Backgroun ...

, he was, like Lonsdale's other members, expected to rigidly adhere to his patron's line in politics, which at the time amounted to support for Pitt's ministry and its measures. He vacated the seat by taking the Chiltern Hundreds in 1786 to make way for Lonsdale's relative, John Lowther, who had been ousted from a seat at

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...

. Postlethwaite did not sit in Parliament again, and may have been the banker who died in 1829.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Postlethwaite, Thomas Politicians from Leicestershire 18th-century English people British MPs 1784–1790 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies