VANE, William Harry, Visct. Barnard (1766-1842), of Raby Castle, co. Dur.

Barnard was returned unopposed in 1790 for the Winchelsea seat recently bought by his father. He had joined Brooks’s in 1788 (he resigned in 1802, but was re-elected in 1816) and initially acted with opposition, but he supported Pitt in the new Parliament.PRO 30/5/195, f. 94. He voted for abolition of the slave trade, 18 Apr. 1791, but was listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland that month. He is not known to have spoken in the Commons, from which he was removed by his father’s death in 1792.

As a peer, he became alienated from Pitt, probably because the minister was unable or unwilling to promote him in the peerage. He gravitated to the Whigs, via the Carlton House party, though he turned Tory for a brief period in 1830.Prince of Wales Corresp. v. 2023; PRO 30/8/195, f. 114. Extensive borough influence rather than political talent aided his eventual rise in the peerage, and according to his obituary his ‘first and chief ambition was to shine as a sportsman’.Gent. Mag. (1842), i. 545.

He died, immensely wealthy, 29 Jan. 1842.