LOVETT, Verney (1705-71).

The Lovetts were an old Buckinghamshire family, but Verney Lovett’s grandfather had settled in Ireland. After less than a year at Trinity, Verney Lovett got into an unexplained scrape, and his disgrace was ‘too public to enter in there again’. ‘I will do all in my power’, wrote his mother to Lord FermanaghVerney Letters of 18th Cent. ed. Lady Verney, ii. 222. in August 1724, ‘... towards bringing him to an India voyage, and if that don’t succeed I don’t know what will become of him.’ Then follow more than seven years during which it is not known what in fact became of him. He entered the army in 1732, served in Flanders and India, resigned his commission in 1755, and returned to England the following year.

In 1761 he was brought into Parliament for Wendover by his cousin Lord Verney, whom he followed in the House, voting with Bute’s Administration. On 17 Dec. 1763 Verney wrote to George Grenville:Grenville mss (JM).

I understand from Lord Sandwich that you were well inclined to indulge me in my desire of making a vacancy in Parliament for my friend Mr. [William] Burke, by giving Major Lovett some place of about £200 a year ... You will permit me to mention that as Mr. Lovett vacates his seat to oblige me, I would naturally wish him to do it in the way that might be most pleasing to him. He is a military man and would prefer a little military government, something under £200 a year, to any other thing even exceeding that sum.

Grenville replied on the 18thGrenville letter bk. that there were some things in Verney’s letter which required further explanation; and therefore asked Verney to call on him. In spite of repeated requests, the vacancy at Wendover was not made till two years later (by the Rockingham Administration), and even then Lovett vacated his seat without compensation.

He died 10 Dec. 1771.