Tollemache, William (1766–1833)

WILLIAM Manners Tollemache, Lord Huntingtower known as Sir William Manners, Bt, was a British nobleman and Tory politician between 1793 and 1821

He was the eldest son of John Manners and Louisa Tollemache, 7th Countess of Dysart.

On 12 January 1793, at the age of 26, he was created a Baronet, of Hanley Hall in the county of Lincoln.

On his mother’s succession to the earldom in 1821, he was styled Lord Huntingtower, and adopted the surname of Talmash or Tollemache.

Huntingtower was known for his high-handed manipulation of the Parliamentary vote in Ilchester.
He owned most of the borough, and represented it from 1803–1804 and 1806–1807. In 1818 his candidates, one of whom was his son, were not elected, and he had the workhouse pulled down.

A petition to Parliament stated: 163 men, women, and children, from one month to upwards of 80 years, were all turned out into the street, without knowing of a place of shelter themselves at the most inclement season of the year. Some of them were able to get together some straw in the town-hall. Some of them betook themselves to the fields. Among the people so turned out, there were several pregnant women, and one daily expected the pangs of child birth.

Parliament offered no amelioration. In the severe winter of 1828–1829 he engaged in a large public relief project, hiring 528 workers in the vicinity of his estates in Buckminster.

He served as High Sheriff of Leicestershire in 1809.

On 12 January 1790, he married Catherine Rebecca Gray (d. 1852), by whom he had six sons and six daughters

He suffered a stroke at Buckminster Park on 7 March 1833 and died four days later.