STANWIX, Thomas (c.1670-1725), of Carlisle, Cumb.

Stanwix was a native of Carlisle, which he represented for nearly 20 years, building up a strong personal interest. For most of that time he was attached to the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, who recommended him to Marlborough for the lieutenant governorship of Carlisle in 1705.Marlborough’s Dispatches, i. 597. Appointed governor of Chelsea Hospital on George I’s accession, he was mayor and commandant of Carlisle during the rebellion of 1715;R. C. Jarvis, Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745, p. 157 n. 7. voted for the septennial bill in 1716; spoke for the Government in the army debate of December 1717; and voted with them on the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts but against them on the peerage bill in 1719. About this time he fell out with Lord Carlisle, who was assured by Lord Sunderland that ‘no regard or favour shall be had to Stanwix, his behaviour of late having not deserved much of that’.HMC Carlisle, 23. On Walpole’s return to the Pay Office in 1720 Stanwix was turned out of his Chelsea post to make way for Charles Churchill, but next year he was compensated with another governorship. His acceptance of the post was held by the House of Commons to vacate his seat, which he lost at the ensuing by-election. He stood again at the general election with the support of Lord Lonsdale,Ld. Lonsdale ‘to my tenants in Burgh Barony who are freemen of Carlisle’, 28 Dec. 1721, Lowther mss. but was narrowly defeated. On both occasions he was brought back into Parliament by the Government for Isle of Wight boroughs. He died 14 May 1725, leaving his property in Carlisle to a nephew, John Roos, who took the name of Stanwix.