SKIPWITH, Sir Grey, 8th bt. (1771-1852), of Alveston Villa, nr. Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire; 6 Pall Mall East, Middlesex

A ‘kind and good hearted country gentlemen’, Skipwith gave general support to Grey’s ministry during his brief parliamentary career.The Times, 24 June 1836. He was born in Virginia, America, where his ancestors had moved after selling their Leicestershire estate, Prestwold, in the mid-seventeenth century. However, as heir and successor to his kinsman Sir Thomas Skipwith, of Newbold Pacey, who funded his English education, Skipwith became a ‘large landed proprietor in Warwickshire’ on the death of his benefactor’s widow in 1832.‘Skipwith, Sir Grey’, HP 1820-1832, vii. 103; Leicester Chronicle, 22 May 1852; Burke’s peerage (1949), 1851.

In 1831 Skipwith offered for the county as a reformer, having previously been considered a ‘Tory’ by many.Gent. Mag. (1852), ii. 90; ‘Skipwith, Sir Grey’, HP 1820-1832, vii. 103. His support for the reform bill confirmed him as a Whig, however, and he was returned in first place for the new division of South Warwickshire at the 1832 general election.The Times, 20 Dec. 1832; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1833), 159. In Parliament, Skipwith voted with ministers against Hume’s motion on retrenchment and Grote’s ballot motion, 14 Feb., 26 Apr. 1833, and defended their Irish coercion bill as a ‘necessary’ measure, 1 Mar. 1833.Hansard, 1 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, c. 23. He was no slavish supporter of Grey’s ministry, however, and lent his support to the currency reform motions of the Attwood brothers, 21 Mar., 24 Apr. 1833. In the same session, Skipwith served on two inquiries on Irish vagrants and on beer shops, the latter of which recommended some restriction of the system of ‘free licensing’ instituted in 1830.PP 1833 (394), xvi. 324; 1833 (416), xv. 2-4. The following year he opposed a low fixed duty on corn, but backed Althorp’s proposal to replace church rates with a central grant derived from the land tax, 7 Mar., 21 Apr. 1834. Unlike his colleague Sir George Philips, Skipwith did not favour the attempt to annex the thriving town of Leamington, in South Warwickshire, to the borough of Warwick.Hansard, 5 Mar. 1834, vol. 21, c. 1182.

Skipwith retired at the 1834 dissolution, after it had become clear that he would face a contest, the expense of which, given his very large family and small income, he was anxious to avoid.The Times, 20 Dec. 1834, 13, 16 Jan. 1835; The Standard, 2 Dec. 1834; ‘Skipwith, Sir Grey’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, vii. 104. However, when a vacancy arose for the same constituency in June 1837 an initially reluctant Skipwith was pressed into action by Warwick radicals and Whig landowners.Manchester Times, 18 June 1836; The Times, 24 June 1836. The local contest was part of a larger battle between ‘Reform and Conservatism’, Skipwith argued, citing parliamentary and municipal reform as well as the abolition of slavery in the British empire as the achievements of the former. He defended the Whigs’ Irish policy and his vote against repealing the malt tax, explaining that he could not support a motion that was really designed to turn out ministers rather than relieve agriculturists.The Standard, 27 June 1836. On Irish church temporalities Skipwith argued that ‘he would resist any measure to overthrow the Protestant Church; but he did not see why ecclesiastical property should not be interfered with as well as civil’.Ibid. Skipwith was easily beaten by a Conservative. He offered for North Warwickshire at the general election the following year, but finished third behind two Conservatives.The Standard, 22 July 1837, 7 Aug. 1837; Morn. Chro., 11 Aug. 1837; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. M. Stenton and S. Lees (8th edn., 1972), 302-3. He appears to have made no further attempts to re-enter Parliament.

Skipwith served as chairman of Warwickshire’s quarter sessions for many years before retiring in 1836.Gent. Mag. (1852), ii. 90. He died in 1852, having sired twenty children, and was succeeded by his first-born son Sir Thomas George Skipwith, 9th baronet (1803-63), who unsuccessfully contested the northern division in 1852 and quickly sold off the family’s heavily encumbered Warwickshire estate and hall.Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 1851-2; G. Tyack, Warwickshire country houses (1994), 146.