General Sir Edward Cust 1st Bart.

NB: Thorne, House of Commons, 1790-1820, Fisher House of Commons, 1820-1832  and Oxford DNB all give tenure of Grantham as 1818-1826 and Lostwithiel as 1826-1832. Hansard online gives them incorrectly as 1818-1820 and 1826-1832. The end of tenure for Grantham given here is approximate.

Appears to have made on speech in the House: HC Deb 23 November 1819 vol 41 cols. 59-67 (Address on the Prince Regent's speech at the opening of the session) - a long and tedious defence of the monarchy in the light of  the King's illness.

Cust, returned for Grantham on his brother, Lord Brownlow’s interest in 1818

Declared in 1820 that the country owed its ‘good sense and its character to the industry of the middling classes’. (Fisher)

Fairly regular attender; gave general support to Liverpool and Wellington ministries.

Consistently against Catholic emancipation 1821-1829; against repeal of Test Acts 1828; against Jewish emancipation, 1830

Also consistently against parliamentary reform 1818-1832.

On slavery and the Caribbean:

Plantation owner in the West Indies: appointed 1823 to standing committee of the West India planters and merchants.

Against the motion condemning the trial of the Methodist missionary John Smith in Demerara, 11 June 1824.

Against the motion condemning the Jamaican slave trials, 2 Mar. 1826.

Visited his plantation in 1838 and on his return published Reflections on West Indian Affairs (1839), in which he stated that in hindsight he regretted that the process of abolishing slavery had not commenced immediately after the parliamentary resolutions of 1823.

Defeated in 1826 election at Grantham ‘a defeat that ended nearly 150 years of unbroken representation of the borough by members of his family’.