FITZROY SCUDAMORE, Charles (?1713-82), of Holme Lacy, Herefs.

Charles Fitzroy, through his marriage in 1749 to the heiress of the old and wealthy Scudamore family of Holme Lacy, acquired large estates near Hereford and an interest in the borough. In 1754 he transferred to Hereford from Thetford, where he had sat on his father’s interest, and topped the poll after a contest. He continued to support Administration throughout this Parliament. In 1761 he again topped the poll at Hereford. His nephew, the 3rd Duke of Grafton, now began to take an active interest in politics, and Scudamore henceforward appears to have followed the Duke’s line very closely. He voted with Opposition on the peace preliminaries, 1 Dec. 1762; was dismissed from office, and voted regularly against the Bute and Grenville Administrations. In 1765, when Grafton was approached by Cumberland about joining a new Administration, he asked to have Scudamore, as a sufferer on his account, ‘replaced’.Grafton, Autobiog. 43. In Newcastle’s plan of the new Administration, 15 May 1765, Scudamore was to be restored to his previous office; next he was considered for a clerkship of the Green Cloth, but finally was appointed deputy cofferer,Fortescue, i. 93, 127, 131, 138. in which office he was continued under Chatham and Grafton. When in 1768 a strong opposition seemed likely at Hereford, Grafton found a seat for him at Heytesbury where he was returned unopposed. After 1770, like Grafton, Scudamore supported North’s Administration till the outbreak of the American war, when he followed the Duke into opposition. In 1779 the Public Ledger wrote of him that ‘though very weak and infirm, he attends constantly to vote with his Grace and his friends in opposition’. But from the important divisions of March and April 1780 he was absent because of ill-health, and though again returned for Thetford at the general election of 1780, does not seem to have attended Parliament, apparently acting merely as stop-gap till the coming of age of Grafton’s son, Lord Euston, for whom he vacated his seat in March 1782. Scudamore died 22 Aug. the same year.