Sir Gerard Noel Noel 2nd Bart. ne Edwardes

Represented Maidstone and Rutland as Gerard Edwardes until 1798 when he became Gerard Noel. [See general biographical notes.]

Initially supporter of Pitt the Younger; one of a group of MPs who in 1788 tried to form a third party independent of both Pitt and Charles James Fox; subsequently joined Whig Club (November 1789) and Brooks’s (March 1792) but in later years rather inconsistent in his affiliations.

Had voted for the abolition of the slave trade, 18 April 1791 and was to present a petition for the abolition of slavery in November 1830. He voted against Catholic relief, May 1817, and did so again in 1829. However, he claimed at the general election of 1830 that he had done so because of his constituents' wishes and that he had been in favour of the measure. But he also claimed that he was against Parliamentary Reform yet would vote in favour of it if his constituents were in favour. Yet later, in 1831, he was both to say that he was a staunch friend of Reform and voted for it in 1832. That he re-joined Brooks's in 1832 is some indication of his return to Whiggery.
There is no record of him having spoken at all during his tenure of Rutland in the 1830s.

History of Parliament: Sir Gerald Noel Noel