Thomas Postlethwaite was a British politician. One of " Lord Lonsdale's ninepins", he represented the

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act of 1832, which had a very small electo ...

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south-west Surrey, England, around south-west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill (Hindhead, Surrey), Beacon Hill, they comprise ...

, in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, from 1784 to 1786. Postlethwaite's identity is uncertain. He may have been the son of Rev. James Postlethwaite of

Fleckney Fleckney is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. It is situated 2.5 miles (4 km) west of the A6 national route between Market Harborough and Leicester. The village appeared in the Domesday Boo ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

, or a member of a Cumberland family. He was a client of

James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (5 August 173624 May 1802) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons for 27 years from 1757 to 1784, when he was raised to the Peerage of Great Britain as Earl of Lonsdale. Life ...

, a peer notorious for his attempts to control Parliamentary representation in the northwest of England, and who had bought up the

burgage Burgage is a medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property ("burgage tenement ...

s at Haslemere in 1780 to obtain sole control over its elections. Returned by Lonsdale in the

1784 British general election The 1784 British general election resulted in William Pitt the Younger securing an overall majority of about 120 in the House of Commons of Great Britain, having previously had to survive in a House which was dominated by his opponents. Backgroun ...

, he was, like Lonsdale's other members, expected to rigidly adhere to his patron's line in politics, which at the time amounted to support for Pitt's ministry and its measures. He vacated the seat by taking the

Chiltern Hundreds The Chiltern Hundreds is an ancient administrative area in Buckinghamshire, England, composed of three hundred (county division), ancient hundreds and lying partially within the Chiltern Hills. "Taking the Chiltern Hundreds" refers to one of the ...

in 1786 to make way for Lonsdale's relative, John Lowther, who had been ousted from a seat at

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...

. Postlethwaite did not sit in Parliament again, and may have been the banker who died in 1829.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Postlethwaite, Thomas Politicians from Leicestershire 18th-century English people British MPs 1784–1790 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies