REYNOLDS, Francis (d.1773), of Strangeways, Manchester, Lancs.

Reynolds was returned unopposed for Lancaster in 1754, and was classed as a Government supporter. In December 1760 he requested that his eldest son’s name be struck out of the list of parliamentary candidates. This may have been due to financial difficulties, for when on 12 July 1761 he asked Newcastle for a post in the household of the ‘intended Queen’ for himself, his eldest son, or his daughter, he gave as a reason that the large expenses of his elections had ‘made something of this sort very necessary’.Add. 32916, f. 25; 32925, f. 237.

Returned in 1761 without a contest, he received the ‘whip’ direct from Newcastle. In Bute’s list a note was put against his name: ‘Newcastle, Government, 2 sons, one in the army and one in the navy’; and Reynolds appears in Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries. In two lists of secret service pensions to Members of Parliament, dated 1763 and 1764,Royal archives, Windsor. Reynolds is included with a pension of £600 p.a. He did not draw this pension under Rockingham, nor apparently did he oppose the Rockingham Administration. It is not known whether his pension was resumed under Chatham, but in each of the lists compiled in the winter of 1766-7, by Rockingham, Charles Townshend, and Newcastle, he was classed as a Government supporter; and in the divisions on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, and the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768, he voted with Administration.

In 1768 when Lord John Cavendish contested Lancaster, Rockingham wrote:Rockingham mss. ‘It would be clear for one Member but that old Reynolds has the remain of interest there which would perhaps unite strongly at the day, if he was attacked.’ After 1768 Reynolds regularly supported Administration. He appears not to have spoken in the House.

He died 12 Aug. 1773.