HEDWORTH, John (1683-1747), of Chester Deanery, Durham.

Hedworth, whose family acquired Chester Deanery under James I, was one of the leading Sunderland coal owners, representing them in negotiations for the regulation of competition between them and the Newcastle coal owners.E. Hughes, North Country Life in 18th Cent. 159 et passim. Returned in 1713 for his county, which he continued to represent till his death, he was classed in 1715 as a Whig but voted with the Opposition in all recorded divisions of that Parliament except on Lord Cadogan. From 1722 to 1741 his only recorded votes were against the Government on the excise bill in 1733, and the place bill in 1740, but for them on the Spanish convention in 1739. His letters to Walpole, one of which reads, ‘I ought to be ashamed of the frequent applications I find myself under the necessity to make to you on the part of my friends’, show him to have been an independent supporter of the Government.5 June 1738, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss. In his last Parliament he voted for the Government on the chairman of the elections committee on 16 Dec. 1741, was put down as ‘Pelham’ in the Cockpit list of October 1742, voted for the Hanoverians in 1744, but did not vote in the other two divisions on them, and was classed in 1746 as Old Whig. He died 31 May 1747.