Thomas Earl Hamilton Marsden Political Career

Lord Binning’s family were related to the Stanhopes and staunch supporters of Pitt’s administration. Being, as the eldest son of a Scots peer, ineligible for a seat in Scotland, he was provided with an English seat in 1802 ‘under the peculiar protection of Mr Pitt’, by Pitt’s sister’s father-in-law, Lord Eliot.

Binning found no seat in 1806, though his friend Huskisson reported that he wished Binning’s father had allowed him to contest Dover, where he might have got in at modest expense. Melville secured an opening for him from Viscount Lowther on a vacancy at Cockermouth in January 1807: Melville had suggested that Binning might come in for Haslemere on the same interest instead of Viscount Garlies, when the latter succeeded to the title in November 1806, but Binning had to wait for the next vacancy. Cockermouth was only available to him for another year, so at the general election of 1807 he found another seat on Lord Clinton’s interest at Callington, through their mutual uncle Francis Drake.

Binning duly went away without voting on 5 Mar. On 30 Mar., however, in the further division on the Scheldt expedition, he outdid Canning, who decided to vote with government after censuring them orally, by voting against them. Canning’s story was that Binning and two other friends were going away, but finding the door locked, came back and voted with opposition. continue reading on Thomas Earl Hamilton Marsden