Sir Charles Davers, 6th Baronet (4 June 1737 – 4 June 1806) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

from 1768 to 1802.

Early life and military career

Davers was the second surviving son of Sir Jermyn Davers, 4th Baronet, MP and Margaretta Green.William Betham, ''The Baronetage of England'' (1803), p.58. He was brought up at

Rushbrooke Hall Rushbrooke Hall was a British stately home in Rushbrooke, Suffolk. For several hundred years it was the family seat of the Jermyn family. It was demolished in 1961. History The original manor house on the moated site to the south of the village ...

in Suffolk and educated at

King Edward VI School (Bury St Edmunds) King Edward VI School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The school in its present form was created in 1972 by the merging of King Edward VI Grammar School, with the Silver Jubilee Girls Scho ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he graduated in 1755. He then undertook the Grand Tour. Davers became an officer in the British Army in 1758, being commissioned into the

44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot The 44th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment in the British Army, raised in 1741. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot to form the Essex Regiment in 1881. History Early history The regim ...

. He served in North America during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

. In January 1761 he was promoted to the rank of Captain while in the service of the 99th Regiment of Foot. He was garrisoned in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in 1766 and was promoted to Major.

Political career

In 1763 Davers inherited his brother's

baronetcy A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

and estates. In the 1768 general election he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Weymouth. At the 1774 general election he was returned as MP for

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

. Davers held his seat in the

due to his close personal alliance with

Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (28 September 173514 March 1811), styled Earl of Euston between 1747 and 1757, was a British Whig statesman of the Georgian era. He is one of a handful of dukes who have served as Prime Minister of t ...

. Grafton encouraged him to cultivate his family interest in Bury at the expense of Davers' brother-in-law,

Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, (1 August 1730 – 8 July 1803), was an 18th-century Church of England, Anglican prelate. Elected Bishop of Cloyne in 1767 and Translation (ecclesiastical), translated to the see of Derry in 1 ...

. Davers publicly aligned himself against

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) was a British statesman who served as the last prime minister of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800, and then first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, p ...

, but did not become a Whig and retained his independence.

Personal life

Davers lived at Rushbrooke Hall with Frances Treice, by whom he had five illegitimate sons and three illegitimate daughters. He was rumoured to have earlier married Miss Coutts, a planter's daughter, in America while serving in the army, and to have had a son, Rushbrook. On his death in 1806 he was buried at St Nicholas Church, Rushbrooke. He left his estates to his nephew, Frederick Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol. On the presumption of there being no surviving legitimate male heirs, his baronetcy became extinct.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davers, Charles, Sir, 6th Baronet 1737 births 1806 deaths Politicians from Bury St Edmunds People educated at King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge English landowners 18th-century English people 44th Regiment of Foot officers Baronets in the Baronetage of England British Army personnel of the Seven Years' War Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 British MPs 1784–1790 British MPs 1790–1796 British MPs 1796–1800 UK MPs 1801–1802