KINNERSLEY, William Shepherd (1780-1823), of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs.

Kinnersley’s father, principal of the Newcastle and Staffordshire bank and an agent of the marquesses of Stafford, died 3 Nov. 1819.Gent. Mag. (1819), ii. 568. At that time Kinnersley was Member for the borough. He was, like his father, a leading member of the corporation. He had deplored the rebellion against the 2nd Marquess’s interest there in 1815 and called for a return to order. In 1818 he was an instrument of the marquess’s revenge, together with Robert John Wilmot.See NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME. He headed the poll then and in 1820.

According to the county Member, Edward John Littleton, who spent an evening with him in London, 18 Jan. 1819, Kinnersley had ‘scarcely two ideas in his head’.Staffs. RO, Hatherton diary, 18 Jan. 1819. He was a Pitt Club stalwart,Oldfield, Key (1820), 120. who had nothing to say in the House. On 1 Mar. 1819 he took a week’s leave of absence. His only known votes in his first Parliament were with ministers in the case of Wyndham Quin, 29 Mar. 1819; against Tierney’s censure motion, 18 May; in favour of the foreign enlistment bill, 10 June, and of banishment for a second libel, 23 Dec. 1819—the latter suggesting that he had remained in town to support measures against sedition. He died 8 July 1823.