Sir William Strickland, 4th Baronet

Sir William Strickland, 4th Baronet PC (c. 1686 – 1 September 1735), of Boynton, East Riding of Yorkshire, was an English landowner and Whig politician, who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1735.

[1] At the 1708 British general election Strickland's father, who for some years had been MP for the local borough of Malton, was instead chosen as Member for Yorkshire – a much more prestigious constituency – and Strickland took his place representing Malton.

[3] Strickland inherited the baronetcy and Boynton Hall near Scarborough on his father's death in 1724.

In 1730, when Walpole reconstructed his government and promoted Henry Pelham to be Paymaster General, Strickland was chosen to take his place as Secretary at War (arguably the most important ministerial post outside the cabinet), and was made a Privy Counsellor.

However, when he returned from London to view the work he found to his fury that the local builders had failed to follow Lord Burlington's instructions, and the rebuilt hall bore little resemblance to the plans, in particular having an "old-fashioned roof" instead of the fashionable Palladian style he had been expecting!