PARDOE, John (?1756-96), of Low Layton, Essex and 14 Bedford Row, Mdx.

Pardoe’s father, a wealthy merchant, purchased his seats in Parliament for him on the Treasury interest. In 1790, having unsuccessfully contested Sudbury, he transferred to West Looe, whose patron John Buller returned friends of government. Pardoe continued to give, it seems, a silent support to administration, but there is no sign of parliamentary activity, apart from his being listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791. On 19 Apr. 1796 his wife died of ‘a rheumatic spasm’, a fortnight after giving birth to her fifth child. Pardoe was ‘overwhelmed’ with ‘melancholy’ and ‘blew out his brains with a pistol’ during his wife’s funeral, which he had been persuaded not to attend, on 26 Apr., aged 39. He died v.p. and intestate.Gent. Mag. (1796), i. 349, 358, 441; PCC admon. act bk. Mdx. June 1796; V. L. Oliver, Antigua , iii. 447; Morning Chron. 2 May 1796.