INGRAM, Hon. Charles (1696-1748), of Hills, nr. Horsham, Suss.

Returned for Horsham on the family interest, Ingram regularly voted with the Government. Nevertheless his military promotion was so slow that in 1742 his brother, Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount Irwin, wrote to the Duke of Newcastle (15 June) asking on his behalf for a regiment:

He has now been four and twenty years in the service, sat one Parliament, is in this, and brought in the man you wished for [Sir Richard Mill], which I would flatter myself may entitle him to this mark of his Majesty’s favour.

In 1747, still without a regiment, Charles wrote to his brother pointing out that he was now the oldest colonel in the army without a regiment, as well as being

in actual service and venturing my life ... If these will not entitle me to a regiment I must get out, for it will be impossible to continue with any credit or reputation to myself after such a slight being put upon me.

Lord Irwin took the matter up with the Duke of Newcastle,Add. 32699, f. 280; 17 and 25 July 1747, Add. 32712, ff. 213, 215. who replied four months later that he had written to the Duke of Cumberland in Germany strongly recommending Ingram’s claim but that ‘his Royal Highness’s answer was not so favourable as I wished it’ and in short that ‘to my great concern, I see no prospect of success’.W. Albery, Parl. Hist. Horsham, 89. On this Ingram resigned his commission. He died 28 Nov. 1748.