cr. 1 Jan. 1712 Bar. MIDDLETON
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 6 May 1725
MP Notts. 1698-1702, 1705-10; Newark 1710–1 Jan. 1712
b. 9 Apr. 1672,1 2nd s. of Francis Willoughby (1635–72) of Wollaton, Notts. and of Middleton, Warws. and Emma (1644–1725), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Barnard of Bridgnorth, Salop. educ. St Catharine’s, Camb. 1683; Jesus, Camb. 1685–8 (tutor, Thomas Man); private tutor (Thomas Man) 1688–90. m. 9 Apr. 1691 (with £10,000), Elizabeth (d.1736), da. and coh. of Sir Richard Rothwell‡, bt. of Ewerby and Stapleford, Lincs., 4s. suc. bro. as 2nd bt. 13 Sept. 1688. d. 2 Apr. 1729; will n.d., pr. 13 May 1729.2
Forester, Langton Arbor Walk, Sherwood Forest, Notts. 1690–d.; dep. lt., Notts. 1692–1701, Lincs. 1699–?1712;3 sheriff Notts. 1695–6; high steward, Peveril honour, Notts. and Derbys. 1706–d., Tamworth 1715–d.
FRS 1693.
Associated with: Wollaton Hall, Notts.; Middleton Hall, Warws.
Thomas Willoughby was still a newborn infant at the time of the death of his father, the celebrated natural philosopher Francis Willoughby. He was aged four when his widowed mother married the wealthy director of the East India Company, Sir Josiah Child‡, after which the family resettled in Wanstead in Essex. His elder brother Francis was granted a baronetcy, with a special remainder to Thomas, in 1677 (at the age of nine) in posthumous recognition of their father’s achievements. Sir Francis, in dispute with his stepfather, entered Cambridge in 1682 and from there took upon himself the education of his younger brother, matriculating him first at his own college, St Catharine’s, in 1683 and then, becoming dissatisfied with that establishment, moving him to Jesus College under the tutelage of Dr Thomas Man in 1685.
In 1687 Sir Francis, engaged in legal disputes with his stepfather over the disposition of the Willoughby inheritance, set up his own household in the family’s neglected and damaged Elizabethan residence of Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire, where his younger sister Cassandra settled to act as housekeeper. Upon Sir Francis’ death, aged 20, in September 1688, Thomas inherited his baronetcy and the following year left Cambridge to replace him as master of Wollaton Hall.4 Through his mother’s side of the family he enjoyed (when Sir Josiah Child allowed him) the resources of a wealthy mercantile family trading to Turkey and the East Indies. Through his brother and their father he inherited a landed estate with property in Nottinghamshire, especially the manor of Wollaton near Newark; in Warwickshire, where lay the family’s principal mansion, Middleton Hall; and in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. He added to his Lincolnshire holdings by marrying, in April 1691, Elizabeth Rothwell, who was rumoured to be worth almost £50,000 p.a. She was a co-heiress of her father, inheriting at his death in 1694 his Lincolnshire estate at Stapleford, which lay near to and adjoined many of the Willoughbys’ estates.5 By the mid-1690s, then, Sir Thomas Willoughby was a wealthy, and still young, member of the east midlands gentry; it was estimated in around 1694 that he could provide his sister Cassandra with a £10,000 marriage portion.6 In 1711, shortly after the death of the great Nottinghamshire magnate John Holles, duke of Newcastle, Willoughby could claim that ‘now I believe no one of that country will pretend to a better fortune than myself’.7
Willoughby distinguished himself by his career in the government and administration of Nottinghamshire and, after his father-in-law’s death, of Lincolnshire. He held a series of local offices in both counties (but principally Nottinghamshire) from 1689. In 1698 he was able to ride the wave of ‘country’ gentry discontent against taxes and the standing army to victory over the sitting Whig members in Nottinghamshire’s parliamentary elections. He was re-elected for the county as a Tory in every subsequent election except for Queen Anne’s first Parliament in 1702, when he declined to stand. He was also a formidable election manager for the party in many of the borough seats and was credited with managing Tory electoral successes at Nottingham, Newark, Retford, and Leicester in 1705.8 In the summer of 1710 Newcastle, trying to implement the plans of his associate Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, for a non-partisan House of Commons, approached Willoughby to join with Scrope Howe‡, Viscount Howe [I], to form a ‘moderate’ Whig–Tory ticket for the county. Willoughby, dissatisfied by Newcastle’s lukewarm support and with the backing of the ‘rigids’ in the Tory party, instead stood for Newark, where he came top of the poll.9 He was later reported to be one of the ‘old beer-drinkers’ who frequented meetings of the October Club.10
Following the death of Newcastle in July 1711, Willoughby probably intended to step into his role as the newly created earl of Oxford’s leading ally in Nottinghamshire.11 With his wealth, local influence, and loyalty to the ministry (even if he did flirt with the ‘rigids’ and the October Club) he was an obvious candidate to be raised to the peerage to assure the Oxford ministry’s majority in the House after their defeats in December 1711. He was duly created Baron Middleton, after the name of the family seat in Warwickshire, on 1 Jan. 1712. He was introduced to the House the following day and almost certainly helped the ministry pass the important motion to adjourn.
Apart from that service on his first day, Middleton may well have disappointed Oxford. He had never been a particularly active parliamentarian while in the Commons and was not about to start now that he was raised to the peerage. In total he only came to a further 36 sittings of the 1711–12 session (one-third of the meetings of the entire session) and was nominated for a single select committee – the only committee to which he was named in his entire parliamentary career. Henry Somerset, 2nd duke of Beaufort, held his proxy on two occasions during this session: between 7 and 10 Mar. 1712 and then again from 6 to 21 June.
Middleton came to 34 of the 77 sittings of the following session of spring and summer 1713, absented himself entirely from the first session of the following Parliament in early 1714, and attended three meetings of the session of August 1714, following Queen Anne’s death. He does not appear to have registered proxies for his votes during this period. Furthermore, despite having been promoted to the House to act as one of Oxford’s devoted followers, there was substantial doubt whether he would support the ministry over the French commercial treaty in June 1713, when he was one of 12 nominal court supporters expected to ‘desert’.
Middleton may have been inactive in the House but he continued his involvement in Nottinghamshire affairs and elections well after his elevation to the peerage. He aspired to be made warden of Sherwood Forest, which position he had first applied for shortly after the death of Newcastle. By February 1712 he found that his chief obstruction was the dowager duchess of Newcastle, who took upon herself the exercise of her husband’s former offices and electoral interests.12 In the months following Newcastle’s death, Oxford probably valued Middleton for the Tory interest that he could bring to Nottinghamshire politics but the lord treasurer soon took more direct control of the county himself. He became an adviser to the dowager duchess and then arranged for the marriage of his son Edward Harley†, styled Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford), to Newcastle’s sole surviving child and heir, Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles. As early as January 1712, when Middleton was trying to promote John Digby‡ as his successor for the Newark seat, Middleton had to go through Oxford to have his candidate recommended to the dowager duchess.13
Middleton and his family used the increased influence of the Harleys in the county to their advantage in the years of Oxford’s dominance. In the summer of 1713 Oxford procured from the dowager duchess her approval of Middleton as custos rotulorum for Nottinghamshire (although he was never actually appointed), while in 1713 and 1715 Middleton and his son Francis Willoughby†, later 2nd Baron Middleton, relied on Oxford and Lord Harley to help Francis and his fellow Tory William Levinz‡ be elected as knights of the shire.14
The accession of George I and the establishment of his Whig ministry brought serious reverses to Middleton and his associates. Francis Willoughby and Levinz were elected to the overwhelmingly Whig House of Commons but Middleton himself only came to 16 sittings of the long first session of George I’s Parliament, entering dissents on 9 July 1715 against the arrest and impeachment of his disgraced patron, Oxford. With Oxford’s fall from power, the dowager duchess of Newcastle’s death in 1716, and Lord Harley’s disengagement from politics, the maintenance of the Tory interest in Nottinghamshire during the reign of George I fell largely on Middleton at Wollaton Hall. He was generally unable to prevail against the greater resources and influence of the late duke of Newcastle’s principal heir, Thomas Pelham Holles, duke of Newcastle, the wealthiest landowner in the county (if not the country) and one of the great Whig magnates of the age. Middleton showed his party allegiance during the few periods when he did attend the House, as when he supported the ‘Church interest’ against the attempt to repeal the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts in 1719, and when he defended Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, in 1723 from the measures taken against him in the wake of the revelations of the Atterbury Plot. Further details of Middleton’s parliamentary career under George I, such as it was, will be rehearsed in the subsequent volumes on the House of Lords.
Middleton died on 2 Apr. 1729, having left an undated will by which he divided his estate up between his four sons, with the lion’s share going to his heir, Francis, who, as 2nd Baron Middleton, took on leadership of the Nottinghamshire Tories.
C.G.D.L.- 1 C. Brydges, Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family ed. A.C. Wood, 130.
- 2 TNA, PROB 11/630.
- 3 CSP Dom. 1691–2, p. 277; 1694–5, p. 299; 1699–1700, p. 117; 1700–2, pp. 42, 252, 303; Add. 33084, f. 165.
- 4 Brydges, Continuation, 118–19, 123–6, 129–41; CSP Dom. 1677–8, p. 47.
- 5 Brydges, Continuation, 139.
- 6 HP Commons, 1690–1715, v. 883.
- 7 Add. 70263, Sir T. Willoughby to R. Harley, 18 July [1711].
- 8 HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 457, v. 884–5; Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 157; W. Speck, Whig and Tory, 106.
- 9 HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 458–9; UNL, Pw2/74, 138; Add. 70026, f. 110; HMC Portland, ii. 216, iv. 571.
- 10 Nicolson, London Diaries, 543.
- 11 Add. 70263, Willoughby to Oxford, 18 July [1711].
- 12 Add. 70294, Middleton to unknown correspondent, 22 Feb. 1712.
- 13 HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 463; Add. 70263, Willoughby to Oxford, 31 Dec. 1711; Add. 70242, duchess of Newcastle to Oxford, 30 May 1712.
- 14 Add. 70247, William Levinz to Oxford, 23 July 1713; HP Commons, 1690–1715, v. 882; Add. 70279, F. Willoughby to E. Harley, 28 Aug. 1714.