Sir Cecil Wray, 13th Baronet

He lived in a large house on the north-east side of Eastgate, Lincoln, but, through annoyance from ‘the clanging of anvils in a blacksmith's shop opposite, got disgusted’ with it.

He contested and won the Parliamentary seat of the borough of East Retford in 1768 as ‘a neighbouring country gentleman and a member of the Bill of Rights Society’ against the interest of the Duke of Newcastle and the corporation, and sat for it in the two parliaments from 1768 to 1780 (Oldfield, Parl.

[1] On the elevation of Sir George Rodney to the peerage Wray, mainly through the influence of Charles James Fox, was nominated by the whig association to fill the vacancy in the representation of Westminster, and he held the seat from 12 June 1782 to 1784.

[1] Between these dates the Fox–North coalition, between Fox and Lord North had been brought about, and Wray at once denounced the union in the House of Commons.

The poll opened on 1 April, and closed on 17 May, when the contest ended, the numbers being Samuel Hood 6,694, Fox 6,233, Wray 5,998.

The beaten candidate demanded a scrutiny, which the high bailiff, a tool of the Tories, at once granted, and it was not abandoned until 3 March 1785, when he was ordered by parliament to make his return at once.

His ‘small beer’ was ridiculed, the ‘unfinished state of his newly fronted house in Pall Mall’ was sneered at,[6] and he provoked much raillery by his proposals to abolish Chelsea Hospital and to tax maid-servants.

They had no issue, and Sir Cecil Wray's estates, which his widow enjoyed for her life, passed to his nephew, Army Officer John Dalton, the son of his sister Isabella.