Richard Vernon (MP)

Richard Vernon (1726–1800) was a British horse breeder and trainer and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1754 and 1790.

Vernon was the son of Henry Vernon MP of Hilton and was born on 18 June 1726. He undertook a Grand Tour through Italy and France in about.1743. He joined the army and was an ensign in the 1st Foot Guards in November 1744. In 1747, he was lieutenant and captain. By 1751 he was closely associated with the Duke of Bedford. Vernon was one of the original members of the Jockey Club. As early as 4 June 1751 the betting-book at the old White's Club records a wager between Lord March and Captain Richard Vernon, alias Fox alias Jubilee Dicky. Vernon was blackballed at the club in the following year because of his friendship with the Duke of Bedford. Horace Walpole described him as ‘a very inoffensive, good-humoured young fellow, who lives in the strongest intimacy with all the fashionable young men’ Sometime after this he moved to Newmarket, where he entered into a racing partnership with Lord March, commonly known as ‘Old Q.’ Thomas Holcroft the dramatist, worked as a stable boy in his stables for two and a half years, and called Vernon ‘a gentleman of acute notoriety on the turf’.

Vernon’s political career was controlled by the Duke of Bedford and his record is a story of profitable positions and dumb votes. At the general election of 1754 Vernon was unsuccessful on the Bedford interest at Camelford, but was returned in a by-election on 10 December 1754 as Member of Parliament for . The Duke of Bedford was lord lieutenant of Ireland and in 1757 Vernon became his second secretary. He married Lady Evelyn Fitzpatrick, widow of John Fitzpatrick, 1st Earl of Upper Ossory and daughter of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower on 15 February 1759 and soon after in May was given an Irish sinecure Clerk of quit rents in Ireland. He was subsequently given a pension of £500 p.a. in lieu of income of that office. Vernon was returned after a contest on the Duke’s interest at Bedford in the 1761 general election. He became clerk of the Green Cloth in April 1764 but lost the post in July 1765. Much was dependent on the Duke’s own fortunes and he was reinstated in 1768. He was re-elected at Bedford after another contest in 1768. However, in 1771 the town enfranchised a large number of freemen which outnumbered the Duke’s interest and in 1774 Vernon was moved to the safer Bedford family seat at Okehampton. He became clerk of the Green Cloth again in 1779 and held the post until March.1782 after he was returned at the 1780 general election. The English Chronicle wrote of Vernon in 1781: He is ... not distinguished either for splendour or deficiency of talents, but with a perfect mediocrity of intellectual endowments enjoys his place, breeds his horses, contrives matches, which he is said to do with more skill and success than any man on the turf, and gives a silent vote to the minister. In1784 he moved from to a seat in the Gower interest at Newcastle under Lyme. He was not given any further office and retired at the 1790 general election.

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