Archibald Hutcheson

{{short description|British barrister and British Member of Parliament}}

Archibald Hutcheson (ca. 1659 – 12 August 1740) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1713 to 1727.

Hutcheson was the son of Archibald Hutcheson of Stranocum, Co. Antrim. He trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1683. He was appointed Attorney General of the Leeward Islands (1688–1702) and in November, 1708 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.{{cite web | url= http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27hutcheson%27%29| title = Library and Archive Catalogue|publisher= Royal Society|accessdate = 23 November 2010}}

Career

Hutcheson was returned as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Hastings at the 1713 general election and held the seat until 1727. He was also elected MP for Westminster at the 1722 general election, but that election was declared void because he was at that time still the member for Hastings.{{cite web| url = http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/hutcheson-archibald-1659-1740| title= HUTCHESON, Archibald (c.1659-1740), of the Middle Temple and Golden Sq., Westminster.| publisher= History of Parliament Online| accessdate = 15 August 2018}} Westminster was the borough constituency with the largest electorate before the Reform Act 1832 (estimated by Namier and Brooke at about 12,000 voters later in the eighteenth century). Contested elections there were often hard-fought.

He was an impassioned opponent of the repeal of the Triennial Act. He was also an early critic of the South Sea Company, producing numerous pamphlets on the company.{{cite book |last1=Dale |first1=Richard |title=The first crash : lessons from the South sea bubble |date=2004 |location=Princeton, N.J. |isbn=978-0-691-11971-7}}

In his old age he took part in the efforts of Thomas Coram and others to establish a home for abandoned children in London. In 1739, the year before Hutcheson's death, a royal charter was granted by George II for a new charity which became known as the Foundling Hospital. The Charter listed Hutcheson as one of the founding governors.{{citation needed|date= August 2023}}

Personal life

Hutcheson married four times, firstly in 1697 to Mary Smith, secondly in 1715 to Dame Mary, of Stepney, widow of Sir John Gayer of the East India Company, thirdly about 1727 to Rebecca Bankes and fourthly about 1730 to Elizabeth Stewart (née Lawrence), widow of Colonel Robert Stewart of Montserrat. From 1732 to his death in 1740, he had a London home at 2 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair.{{cite web |title=Upper Brook Street: North Side Pages 200-210 Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings). Originally published by London County Council, London, 1980. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/pp200-210 |website=British History Online |accessdate=12 July 2020}}

He died without living issue. Elizabeth, on Hutcheson's death, went at his wish, to join the household of William Law at King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, where she is buried in the parish churchyard.{{citation needed|date= August 2023}}

References

The House of Commons 1754-1790, by Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke (HMSO 1964)
The Parliaments of England by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844–50), second edition edited (in one volume) by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973)

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Hastings

| with = Sir Joseph Martin 1713–1715
Henry Pelham 1715–1722
William Ashburnham 1722–1727

| years = 1713–1727

| before = William Ashburnham
Sir Joseph Martin

| after = Thomas Townshend
William Ashburnham

}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Westminster

| with = John Cotton

| years = March 1722 – December 1722

| before = Sir Thomas Crosse
Edward Wortley Montagu