AISLABIE, William (c.1699-1781), of Studley Royal, nr. Ripon, Yorks.

Shortly after coming of age, William Aislabie was returned for the seat vacated by his father’s expulsion from the Commons. He represented Ripon for the next sixty years. Actuated by his father’s resentments, he voted against Walpole’s Government in every recorded division from 1727, except on the place bill in 1740, from which division he was absent, perhaps because he had recently succeeded to the lucrative sinecure procured for him in reversion by his father in 1718. Disappointed that nothing was done for his family on Walpole’s fall, he continued in opposition, speaking and voting against the Hanoverians in 1742 but voting for them in 1744Hartington to Devonshire, 19 Jan 1744, Devonshire mss. and 1746. He was classed among Granville’s followers in 1746 and as Opposition in 1747. About 1750 the 2nd Lord Egmont, in his survey of the House of Commons, noted against Ripon:

In Mr. Aislabie, I have always understood that any Administration might have him for a peerage, if it was worth while, or convenient to give it;

on which the Prince of Wales commented: ‘I hope we’ll carry it by something in the army for the younger son’.

He died 17 May 1781.