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Henry Fownes Luttrell
Member of Parliament for Minehead
In office 1768–1774Serving with Charles Whitworth (1768-1774) and John Fownes Luttrell (1774)
Preceded by	Henry Shiffner Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond
Succeeded by	John Fownes Luttrell Thomas Pownall
Personal details
Born	Henry Fownes circa 1722
Died	(1780-10-30)October 30, 1780
Spouse(s)	Margaret Luttrell ​(m. 1747)​ Frances Bradley ​(m. 1771)​
Children	Six sons, four daughters.
Residence	Dunster Castle

Henry Fownes Luttrell (c. 1722 - 30 October 1780), born Henry Fownes, was an English landowner, proprietor of Dunster Castle, lord of the manor of Dunster, High Sheriff of Somerset from 1754 to 1755, and a Member of Parliament for the borough of Minehead from 1768 to 1774.

He was born into an old family, originating in Plymouth, and led the life of a country squire. He married, in 1747, the heiress of the Luttrell family of Dunster Castle in Somerset, which he therefore came to possess, becoming Lord of the Manor of Dunster, Heathfield and Kilton amongst others, and adding her name to his to respect her late father's Will. He altered the Castle considerably, redecorating and redesigning its interior, while building a park and Conygar Tower in its grounds.

He found, though, that his estate bought him relatively little political power, when his candidate for the 1754 election was not returned. Frustrated by this, he set about "nursing" his interest in the Borough. Later, a compromise with a rival land-owner placed one of the borough's two parliamentary seats in his pocket. He stood for election in 1768 and was returned with the support of the Government. He was returned again in 1774 alongside his eldest son; the Prime Minister was disgruntled that he had not returned his candidate and Fownes Luttrell resigned on the condition that the Government's candidate would not interfere in the future without his permission. From then until the electoral reforms of 1832, the borough's parliamentary seats were effectively under the influence of his family.

Fownes Luttrell was not an active politician, and is not known to have spoken or voted in Parliament during the six years he was a Member. Instead, he enjoyed the life of a country squire, hunting and managing his estates. He married for a second time in 1771, and died in 1780, his eldest son, John, succeeding to his estate.

Early life and family

Henry Fownes was born about 1722 or 1723, the eldest son of John Fownes of Kittery Court, Kingswear, Devon, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth, and his wife Anne Maddock, daughter of Samuel Maddock of Tamerton Foliott. He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1741, but did not take a degree.

On 16 February 1747, Fownes married his second cousin Margaret Luttrell (born 7 February 1726), the daughter and heiress of Alexander Luttrell, the head of an ancient family occupying Dunster Castle, Somerset, and his wife Margaret Travelyan, daughter of Sir John Trevelyan, second Baronet. According to Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, a historian of the family and of Dunster, "the union proved exceptionally happy and her letters to her husband ... are conceived in the spirit of the sincerest affection." Upon marrying her, Fownes added Luttrell to his surname (as was required in the will of her father) and was also compelled to spend six months each year at Dunster Castle.

Together, they had six sons and four daughters. Of these, several died as infants: Alexander Fownes Luttrell (born and died in 1749), Anne Fownes Luttrell (born and died 1750), Anne Fownes Luttrell (born and died 1751), and Anne Fownes Luttrell (born and died 1758); while Lieutenant Henry Fownes Luttrell (1753–77) was an officer in the Royal Horse Guards, but died unmarried and Margaret Fownes Luttrell (1747–92) married, in 1769, John Henry Southcote of Buckland Toutsaints, Devon, and sat for a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds that year. The remainder were otherwise notable:

• Lieutenant-Colonel John Fownes Luttrell (1752–1816). He was a Member of Parliament for Minhead from 1774 to 1806 and again from 1807 to 1816.
• The Reverend Alexander Luttrell (baptised 1754; died 1816). He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and took holy orders, becoming, in 1779, Rector of East Quantockshead and, in 1780, Prebend of Combe Decima in Wells Cathedral and Vicar of Minehead; he was a largely absentee clergyman. In 1807, he married Lucy Gatchell, daughter of John Gatchell, and had issue, a son and a daughter: the Rev. Alexander Henry Fownes Luttrell (1808 - 1899), Vicar of Minehead from 1832 to 1899, and Caroline Lucy Fownes Luttrell (born 1811).
• Francis Fownes Luttrell (1756 - 1823). He sat as a Member of Parliament for Minehead from 1780 to 1783 and went on to be Chair of the Board of Customs from 1813 to 1819.
• Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Fownes Luttrell (1763 - 1811). He was an army officer and sat as a Member of Parliament for Minhead from 1795 to 1796.

Margaret Luttrell died in 1766 and Fownes Luttrell remarried five years later, in 1771, to Frances Bradley, a daughter of Samuel Bradley of Dunster. She died in 1803.

Country squire

Margaret Luttrell was the only child of the head of the Luttrell family of Dunster. Alexander Luttrell the younger, her father, died when she was eleven, in 1737; being his only daughter, therefore became his heiress. He left behind debts due to his own lifestyle and a provision of his parents' wills forcing him to support his niece, Anne Luttrell, a daughter of Francis, his brother. Dunster Castle, the family seat, was closed and valued, while much of the silver possessed by the family was sold off, in some cases to relatives. In the mean time, Margaret Luttrell went to live with her mother's new husband, Edward Dyke of Tetton, a wealthy land-owner. While there, she married Fownes, who was then a resident of Nethway, Devon.

In order to improve his wife's estate, Fownes Luttrell obtained a sanction from the Court of Chancery to sell the manors of Heathfield and Kilton, but found no buyers; he subsequently attempted to sell the manor of Minehead, and also offered at least one of the Parliamentary seats for the Borough of Minehead for £30,000, but there were no serious bidders, largely due to the high prices and the fact that Fownes Luttrell had in fact not inherited much control over the seats he was putting up for sale. However, frugal spending helped to recover the estate and Fownes Luttrell invested in 1760 in the manor of Foremarsh, near Dunster, which he purchased from John Poyntz. He went on to buy the manor of Staunton Fry in 1777 and a number of tenements in Dunster. In leisure, he particularly enjoyed hunting, keeping hounds and horses, and cock-fighting.

Dunster Castle

Beginning in 1747, Fownes Luttrell made numerous and significant alterations to Dunster Castle, redecorating and redesigning it in the Rococo style. He renovated the Great Parlour, converted a bedroom over it into a Drawing Room in 1758, created a Breakfast Room over the Hall in 1772, remodelled the southern part of the castle, and altered the Great Staircase in 1773. His changes to the décor of the castle are also noteworthy, particularly for his early use of newly-fashionable wallpaper.

Further alterations were made by Fownes Luttrell to the castle grounds. He created the park there and constructed Conygar Tower. The latter was commissioned in 1775 and was designed as a decorative folly to improve the views from the Castle; he also built a gatehouse and a statue of Neptune in Conygar wood at a similar time, while commissioning the reconstruction of Dunster Water Mill and the adjacent bridge, which were rebuilt from 1779 to 1780. In 1764, the Lower Ward of the Castle was reduced to one level, while several adjoining walls were removed and the road passing through the gateway was covered over. Additionally, his 141 hectare (348 acre) park was built south of the Castle, and required the eviction of a number of tenant farmers.

Member of Parliament

Being Lord of the Manor of Minehead theoretically gave Fownes Luttrell a "Natural Interest" in elections to Parliament for the borough—i.e. the power to influence the votes of its householders. However, the Luttrells had let it slip out of their control and Fownes Luttrell was being warned by his estate's agent, John St. Albyn, in 1747 that "you do not appear sure of more than one quarter of the vote, and it may happen too that of even one quarter of them some will fail you". At the British General Election of 1754, Fownes Luttrell was serving as High Sheriff of Somerset, which barred him from standing as a candidate to be a Member of Parliament; however Henry Shiffner, a merchant from London, approached him and offered himself as a candidate for the borough in his place.

As St. Albyn had warned, Shiffner was not returned as a Member; instead, Lord Egremont, a local landowner, offered considerable financial support to his own candidate, Daniel Boone, while one of the incumbent MPs, Charles Whitworth, offered to sell parts of his estate to loyal supporters. An intervention from the Duke of Newcastle, at Egremont's request, led to Boone and Whitworth forming an alliance against Fownes Luttrell. Shiffner petitioned Parliament and was supported by an angered Fownes Luttrell, but Egremont and Fownes Luttrell eventually agreed a truce and by 1757 had agreed to return a member each and oppose any third candidates. Reluctant to stand himself, Fownes Luttrell supported Shiffner again. The pair would spend seven years dealing with the estate and consolidating his interest there; this, coupled with his arrangement with Egremont, meant that Shiffner was duly returned in 1761, alongside the first Earl of Thomond, brother of Egremont, beating an outsider, the Earl of Clanbrassill. During this Parliament, Fownes Luttrell entertained voters at Dunster Castle and in the village, where he laid on expensive feasts.

After his wife's death in 1766, Fownes Luttrell decided to stand at the general election in 1768; there were still factions and opposition to him; in order to gain some form of patronage in Minehead, he travelled to London and obtained from the Government control over the offices in Minehead, which prevented his opponents from doing the same. Fownes Luttrell won that election, accumulating more than £1,800 worth of expenses in the process. While a Member of Parliament, he is not recorded as speaking and does not appear in the small number of division lists still surviving. According to the family's historian, Maxwell Lyte, "it does not appear that had any real zest for Parliamentary life probably far happier with his hounds and his fighting cocks in Devon or Somerset." However, it appears that the Prime Minister, Lord North, believed that in return for the Government's support in 1768, Fownes Luttrell had promised to return the Government's candidate, Thomas Pownall, in 1774 and so, at the election, supported Fownes Luttrell and "warned off" his rival, Charles Whitworth. However, Fownes Luttrell was elected alongside his eldest son, John, which caused a dispute between the former and North. The dispute was resolved when the elder Fownes Luttrell offered to resign that December, in favour of Pownall, on the condition that Pownall seek his approval before nominating any of his friends or himself in future; a draft document outlining his other conditions included a payment of £3,000 in return for his resignation.

Despite resigning, Fownes Luttrell had asserted his influence and control over both seats and, in 1780 his son Francis was elected alongside John Fownes Luttrell, who remained one of the MPs until 1806 and went on to sit again from 1807 to 1816; his other son, Thomas, and John's son (also called John) were also elected subsequently. Henry Fownes Luttrell died on 30 October 1780.

Ancestry

References

Notes

1. At that time of his death, there were only five representatives of the family surviving: three distantly related men (one who was mentally ill, the other an aged bachelor and the last was a boy) and two women, Margaret and her young cousin Anne. (The mentally ill member was Southcote Luttrell of Saunton Court, the "old bachelor" was Francis Luttrell of the Temple, and the boy was Southcote Hungerford Luttrell.)
2. For a history of this family, see Hancock, F., The Parish of Selworthy in the County of Somerset, 1897 (in particular pp. 170-174).
3. A description of this family's possession of Foremarsh is given in the first draft of the "Carhampton: Land Ownership" section of the Victoria County History of Devon, p. 19.
4. For his predecessor and successor as High Sheriff, see Dunning, R., A History of Somerset, 1983, pp. 109–117

Citations

1. ^ Namier (1964b)
2. ^ Namier (1964a)
3. See also Matthews (1970).
4. ^ Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 227
5. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 226 states that they were second cousins.
6. ^ Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 259
7. ^ Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 261
8. ^ Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, pp. 260
9. See also R.G. Thorne, "Fownes Luttrell, John I (1752-1816), of Dunster Castle, Som.", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, 1986, ed. R. Thorne
10. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, pp. 533-534
11. see also Sir L. Namier, "Fownes Luttrell, Francis (1756-1823)", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, 1964, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke.
12. see also R.G. Thorne, "Fownes Luttrell, Thomas (1763-1811), of Dunster Castle, Som.", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, 1986, ed. R. Thorne
13. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 225
14. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 226
15. Maxwell Lyte (1909), pp. 225-226
16. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 228
17. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, pp. 228-229
18. Garnett (2003), p.42
19. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, p. 376
20. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, pp. 376-378
21. Garnett (2003), p.42
22. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, p. 376
23. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, p. 378
24. "Conygar Tower", everythingexmoor.org.uk (retrieved 12 September 2014); archived at the Internet Archive.
25. "Conygar Wood and Conygar Tower", dunsterestate.co.uk (retrieved 12 September 2014); archived at the Internet Archive.
26. "Dunster's Corn Mills", Victoria County History. University of London.
27. "Dunster Working Water Mill", everythingexmoor.org.uk (retrieved 12 September 2014); archived at the Internet Archive.
28. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. ii, pp. 378-379
29. Garnett (2003), pp. 27 and 29
30. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 232
31. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 238
32. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 239
33. Maxwell Lyte (1909), pp. 242 and 244
34. Maxwell Lyte (1909), p. 250
35. Maxwell Lyte (1909), vol. i, p. 256
36. See the above-cited History of Parliament articles.

Bibliography

• Burke, J. and Burke, J.B. (1847). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry, volume ii.
• Cokayne, G.E. (1893). The Complete Peerage, 1st edition, volume 5.
• Garnett, O. (2003) Dunster Castle, Somerset. London: The National Trust. ISBN 978-1-84359-049-1
• Gilbert, C.S. (1820). An Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, volume 2.
• Matthews, S. (1970). "Fownes, John, jun. (?1687-1733), of Nethway and Kittery Court, nr. Dartmouth, Devon", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick
• Maxwell Lyte, Sir H.C. (1909). A History of Dunster. (Two volumes: one and two)
• Namier, Sir L. (1964a). "Fownes Luttrell, Henry (?1722-80), of Dunster Castle, Som.", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. Sir L. Namier, J. Brooke
• Namier, Sir L. (1964b). "Minehead", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. Sir L. Namier, J. Brooke

Likenesses

• Portrait of Henry Fownes Luttrell by an unknown artist, at BBC Your Paintings.
• Portrait of Margaret, Mrs. Fownes Luttrell by Richard Phelps, at BBC Your Paintings.

Template:Persondata

• 1722 births
• 1780 deaths
• Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
• High Sheriffs of Somerset
• English landowners