Thomas William Plummer

MP for Yarmouth Isle of Wight 1806-1807 and according to R.G. Thorne a partner in Plummer, Barham & Plummer, the firm of his father Thomas Plummer (q.v.). Although the London Gazette shows that the second Plummer after 1802 was Thomas William Plummer's brother John Plummer (q.v.), Thomas William Plummer was also shown as a partner in an indenture of 1807, confirming Thorne, who documents an earlier and independent mercantile career '1799-1804' for 'Thomas Plummer junior', and also notes that Thomas William Plummer was the London agent for the pioneers of the Australian wool industry such as John MacArthur and Simeon Lord. Thomas William Plummer predeceased his father in 1817.

1. 'His firm were also agents for Lady Holland’s Jamaican plantations and it was this connexion, allegedly, that brought him into Parliament in 1806, as a guest of Sir Henry Worsley Holmes, for Yarmouth. He supported the Grenville ministry, speaking in favour of the admission of Catholics to military office, 5 Mar. 1807, and voting for Brand’s motion following their dismissal, 9 Apr. But he was ‘adverse’ to the abolition of the slave trade, advocating deferment, 10 Feb. 1807, dividing against the second reading on 23 Feb. and, after a spell of absence, announcing on 16 Mar. that suspension of the trade would be better than abolition—he was alarmed at ‘propagating notions of political right among a people so unintelligent and so easily provoked to revolt as the negroes’. He was spokesman for the West India interest against abolition at the bar of the other House. Lady Holland dubbed him ‘Plummer, the orator’.'

History of Parliament http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/plummer-thomas-william-1817 [accessed 08/12/2015]; https://eap.bl.uk/sites/default/files/legacy-eap/downloads/eap345_survey.pdf [accessed 19/03/2019] p. 13.

1. History of Parliament http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/plummer-thomas-william-1817 [accessed 01/03/2017].