CHARLTON, Job Staunton (1700-78), of Staunton Hall, Notts.

Though descended on both sides from Royalists and Tories and closely connected with Francis Willoughby, 2nd Lord Middleton, the leader of the Nottinghamshire Tories, Charlton publicly supported the Whig candidates at Newark in 1727. Having succeeded in 1732 to the Staunton estates near Newark,Rich. Sutton to Newcastle, 28 Aug. 1727, SP Dom. 36/3. he was chosen by Newcastle as his nominee for that borough in 1741. After obtaining Lord Middleton’s consent and support, he was returned without difficulty, a last minute attempt to produce an opponent achieving nothing but a substantial addition to his expenses.Charlton to Newcastle, 27 Dec. 1740, Add. 32695, f.524; 6 May 1741, Add. 32696, f.470.

For the next few years Charlton set himself to ‘fix a good understanding’ between Newcastle and Middleton; i.e. to reconcile their conflicting interests in Nottinghamshire. He met with occasional setbacks, once receiving a message from Middleton threatening to oppose Newcastle ‘in every place he has any interest as long as he lives’, while Newcastle made him ‘extremely miserable’ by suspecting him of double-crossing. In the end, however, he succeeded in negotiating an agreement under which Newcastle and Middleton co-operated throughout the county both in 1747 and 1754.Same to same, 29 Nov. 1746, Add. 32709, f.279; 8 June 1747, Add. 32711, f.266; 13 June 1747, Add. 32711 f.342.

Besides acting as an intermediary between Newcastle and Middleton, Charlton was Newcastle’s manager at Newark, a position combining the duties of an estate agent with those of an election agent. ‘From the first moment you reposed the least degree of confidence in me’, he told Newcastle in 1746, ‘I gave up my whole time to your service’; a year later he complained: ‘I have given up now almost seven years to the attendance and the slavery of a borough and my circumstances are rather worse than when I first set out’.29 Nov. 1746, ut supra; 17 Nov. 1747, Add. 32713, f.449. For these services he was rewarded by Newcastle in 1751 with a place in the Ordnance at a salary of £400 a year. The same year he became chairman of the committees of supply and ways and means, for which he received £500 a year from secret service funds.Namier, Structure, 228. In this capacity he is described as

a man of great gravity and who had every point of order in his head but unfortunately so very ill arranged that as sure as ever he came to apply them so sure he mistook them for another.Liverpool Tractate, ed. Strateman, 37-38.

He died in February 1778.