William Cayley (c.1695 — 14 February 1768), of

Scampton Scampton is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish including Brampton and Broadholme at the 2011 census was 1,358. It is situated north of Lincoln, south-east of Ga ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, was a British consul in the Iberian peninsula from 1726 to 1746,

Member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

(MP) of the Parliament of Great Britain for Dover 7 February 1752 - April 1755., and a Commissioner of Excise from 1755 to 1767.

Family

His father was Simon Cayley, seventh son of Sir William Cayley, the second of the

Cayley baronets The Cayley Baronetcy, of Brompton in the County of York, is a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 26 April 1661 for William Cayley, who had earlier fought as a Royalist in the Civil War. His great-great-great-grandson (the title ...

Spain and Portugal

In 1722 William Cayley went to Lisbon as secretary to Sir Thomas Saunderson, the British minister there. The following year he was appointed chargé d'affaires in Lisbon. He was British consul in Cadiz from 1726 to 1739, and then, in 1739, on the outbreak of the

War of Jenkins' Ear The War of Jenkins' Ear, or , was a conflict lasting from 1739 to 1748 between Britain and the Spanish Empire. The majority of the fighting took place in New Granada and the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. It is con ...

, consul in

Faro, Portugal Faro ( , ) is a municipality, the southernmost city and capital of the district of the same name, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. With an estimated population of 60,995 inhabitants in 2019 (with 39,733 inhabitants in the city proper, ...

. There is a collection of his diplomatic correspondence from 1735 onwards in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, a number of letters reporting 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 others, including Admiral

Nicholas Haddock Admiral Nicholas Haddock (1686 – 26 September 1746) was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Commander-in-Chief of Britain's naval forces in the Mediterranean between 1738 and 1742. Despite an active and successful early and middle career, his re ...

, on ship movements and other matters of interest to the British government, particularly causes of friction between Britain and Spain. In 1746 he sought, and obtained, permission to resign his post in Faro and return to England.

MP and Excise Commissioner

In 1747 he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament for the constituency of

Totnes Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and abo ...

. He sought government support for a safer seat. He was finally elected MP for Dover in 1752, with government backing. In 1754 he applied to the Duke of Newcastle for a government appointment in recognition of his work in Spain and Portugal. The following year he was appointed a Commissioner of Excise and gave up his seat in Parliament. He resigned on health grounds in early 1767. In 1749 the manor of Scampton was devised to him by its joint coheirs. He died aged 73 in 1768 and was buried with his unmarried daughter at Ampthill, Bedfordshire. He had married and had one daughter, Sarah. He left Scampton to Richard Stonhewer with remainder to his cousins, the Cayleys of Brompton.

External links

"History of Parliament online""Cayley family History"

Burial record on findagrave.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cayley, William 1768 deaths People from Scampton Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Dover British MPs 1747–1754 British MPs 1754–1761 Year of birth uncertain

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...