LOCKYER, Joseph Tolson (1729-65).

Joseph Lockyer is said to have incurred his father’s displeasure by his marriage, and not to have seen him for some years before 1756.See LOCKYER, Thomas. Still, Thomas Lockyer insisted on returning him for a seat acquired by the Treasury at the general election of 1761; and Newcastle found it advisable to acquiesce in it. Lord Egmont wrote to Bute, 3 June 1762: ‘I can answer absolutely for the good conduct of the young man and for the good dispositions of the father.’Bute mss. In the autumn of 1763 Jenkinson marked him as ‘pro’. There is no record of Lockyer having spoken in the House. On 7 Mar. 1765 Egmont wrote to Grenville that he had settled the succession at Ilchester with Thomas Lockyer,Grenville mss (JM). and prevailed on him

to engage for his son (who is not dead but in a lingering consumption) to vacate his seat by some little office, if it would suit better than waiting uncertainly of the time of his death. Which Lord Egmont thinks it will, as if he should live beyond this sessions of Parliament and as no writ can be issued for a long time afterwards, it would put Lord Egmont and Mr. Lockyer perhaps to considerable expense, by the attempts of adventurers during an interval of so many months.

Grenville approved of Egmont’s arrangements;7 Mar. 1765, Grenville letter bk. but ‘with all the entreaties of his friends’, wrote Egmont on 16 Mar., ‘young Mr. Lockyer cannot be prevailed upon to resign his seat in Parliament, though by all accounts it is not likely he should live six weeks’.Grenville mss (JM). He died 5 Apr. 1765. It was alleged that Thomas Lockyer refused ‘in his son’s last illness, to afford the least assistance’; and that ‘Joseph’s provision arose wholly from his mother’s family’.Case of Maria Perry, Widow, against Edward Phelips, etc., and Others, Claimants under the late Thomas Lockyer, Esq.