BURRARD, George (1805-1870), of Lymington, Hants.

Burrard’s family had for many years controlled the pocket borough of Lymington, where they were the dominant landowners. He was heir presumptive to his uncle Sir Harry Neale*, whose receipt of court favours presumably included the appointment of Burrard’s father as a royal chaplain in ordinary in 1801, a post he held for life. Gent. Mag. (1856), ii. 245. Described as a ‘well endowed pluralist’ in an 1823 radical publication, his father possessed the livings of Middleton Tyas, Yorkshire, and Burton, Lincolnshire, as well as that of Shalfleet, where he was resident. Black Bk. (1823), 249. Their collective value was estimated at £1,678 per annum in 1829, when he vainly sought to exchange them for a single preferment of similar value. Wellington mss WP1/1010/22. Burrard was the only child of his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy Jamaican merchant and landowner, who had brought with her a fortune in excess of £30,000. There is no evidence to support the family historian’s claims that Burrard attended Christ Church, Oxford. More credible, given the connections of his uncle, is the assertion that his army commission was granted without purchase by the duke of York. Caribbeana, ii. 92, 144; S. Burrard, Annals of Walhampton, 180-3. During his brief career his regiment was stationed at Glasgow, before moving to Ireland in 1827. Hist. Recs. King’s Regt. 101.

Burrard had been made a burgess of Lymington, 10 June 1826, and he was quietly returned on a vacancy there at the end of the 1828 session. Hants RO 27M74/DBC5. He did not take his seat until 5 Feb. 1829, when he was placed on the half-pay list. He made little mark in the House and is not known to have spoken in debate. Planta, the Wellington ministry’s patronage secretary, predicted that he would support their concession of Catholic emancipation, for which he duly voted, 6, 30 Mar. 1829. He divided against the transfer of East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 11 Feb, Jewish emancipation, 17 May, and the Galway franchise bill, 25 May 1830. He voted against reduction of the grant for South American missions and abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 7 June. After his unopposed return at the 1830 general election, he was listed among the ‘friends’ of the administration, and he voted with them in the crucial division on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. He voted against the second reading of the Grey ministry’s reform bill, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr 1831. Following another unopposed return at the ensuing election he divided against the second reading of the reintroduced bill, 6 July, and at least four times for an adjournment, 12 July. Next day he presented a Lymington petition against the removal of licensing restrictions contemplated in the beer bill. Thereafter his attendance was apparently sporadic. He was in the minorities for use of the 1831 census to determine the disfranchisement schedules, 19 July, to postpone consideration of Chippenham’s inclusion in Schedule B, 27 July, against the bill’s passage, 21 Sept., and the second reading of the Scottish reform bill, 23 Sept. He voted against the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, going into committee on it, 26 Jan., the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He divided against the second reading of the Irish bill, 25 May, and against government on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12 July 1832.

At the 1832 general election the mantle of family representative at Lymington was resumed by his uncle. Burrard made no attempt to re-enter the Commons thereafter and in due course succeeded to the baronetcy and the Walhampton estate, near Lymington, following the deaths of Sir Harry in 1840 and his father, who named him as joint trustee in his will, in 1856. PROB 11/2238/676. In September 1870 he drowned while bathing at Lyme Regis. The Times, 9 Sept. 1870. Walhampton and the baronetcy devolved on his half-brother Harry, while by the terms of his will, proved 27 Dec. 1870, his house in Lymington passed to his wife.