Nathaniel Jefferys

Nathaniel Jefferys (?1758 – 3 March 1810) was a London jeweller who was Member of Parliament for Coventry from 1796 to 1803.[1]

Family and early career

Jefferys was the son of Nathaniel Jefferys (died 1786) and his wife Elizabeth.[1] His father and uncle were goldsmiths, and in 1783, the younger Nathaniel set up in business and became jeweller to members of the royal family and courtiers.[1] About the same time, he married Mary, daughter of rich merchant William Knowlys and sister of John and Newman Knowlys.[1][2] The couple lived richly, with a townhouse in Pall Mall and a seaside villa by Benjamin Bond-Hopkins near Ramsgate.[1] They had several daughters and one son,[1] Nathaniel Newman Jefferys (1788–1873), later of Chepstow and Southampton and in 1817 a Master extraordinary in the Court of Chancery.[3] In 1846, John Knowlys bequeathed Nathaniel Newman Jefferys a lump sum of £5000 and Nathaniel's sister Mary £200 a year.[4]

Parliament and later career

William Wilberforce Bird invited Jefferys to stand alongside him in Coventry at the 1796 general election, and both were elected.[1][5] In Parliament, Jefferys supported the Prince of Wales (his leading customer, the future George IV) against the Pitt ministry.[1] In 1797 he went bankrupt though his customers' failure to pay their bills; a subsequent attempt to restart with his father-in-law's support was unsuccessful.[1] He lost Bird's support, but received that of Coventry corporation and narrowly held his seat at the 1802 election, ahead of Bird and his new protégé Peter Moore.[5] Moore's election petition resulted in Jefferys' unseating on 11 March 1803, when the Commons decided that he did not meet the property qualification under the Parliament Act 1710, the land purportedly conveyed to him by William Bryant shortly before the election having been sold by Bryant some years previously.[1][5][6] In 1806 he went bankrupt again, shortly after publishing a pamphlet attacking the Prince of Wales, whom he blamed for his debts and political failure.[1][7] The Prince's defenders countered that Jefferys had gained other customers through his royal connection, and overcharged his clients.[7][8] He subsequently worked as an estate agent and wrote travel guides.[1]

References

Publications
  • Bird, William Wilberforce; Jefferys, Nathaniel (1796). To the Worthy, Independent Freemen, of the City of Coventry. Gentlemen, with Every Feeling of Gratitude for Your Firm and Manly Support ... by Electing Us Your Representatives in Parliament.
  • Jefferys, Nathaniel (1806). A Review of the Conduct of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in His Various Transactions with Mr. Jefferys, During a Period of More Than Twenty Years, Containing a Detail of Many Circumstances Relative to Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, Mrs. Fitzherbert, &c. &c. &c; To which is added a Letter to Mrs. Fitzherbert upon the Influence of her Example, &c (8th ed.). J.H. Hart (printer). Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  • Jefferys, Nathaniel (1806). A refutation of the positive falsehoods and gross misrepresentations contained in the several publications professing to be in reply to the Review of the conduct of the Prince of Wales: with observations. To which is added the Report of the proceedings upon the trial before Lord Kenyon, in 1796, for the recovery of the money due to Mr. Jefferys for jewels and plate sold to the Prince of Wales. J.H. Hart (printer).
  • Jefferys, Nathaniel (1809). A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Isle of Man. Preston and Heaton (printers). Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  • Jefferys, Nathaniel (1810). An Englishman's descriptive account of Dublin, : and the road from Bangor Ferry, to Holy Head. Also of the road from Dublin, by Belfast, to Donaghadee, and from Portpatick to Newcastle upon Tyne. London: Cadell and Davies. Retrieved 12 December 2019.

Citations
  1. Thorne, R. G. (1986). "Jefferys, Nathaniel (?1758–1810)". In R. Thorne (ed.). The History of Parliament. The House of Commons 1790–1820. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  2. Mayo, Charles Herbert (1882). A genealogical account of the Mayo and Elton families of the counties of Wilts and Hereford. London: C. Whittingham. pp. 143-144. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  3. Bulletins and Other State Intelligence. Westminster: R. G. Clarke. 1817. p. 162. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  4. "Additions to Obituary". The Gentleman's Magazine. London: John Bowyer Nichols. ns XXVI: 661. December 1846. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  5. Thorne, R. G. (1986). "Coventry". In R. Thorne (ed.). The History of Parliament. The House of Commons 1790–1820. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 12 December 2019.}
  6. Barlow, Francis William (1803). The whole of the evidence given on the trial of the petition of William Wilberforce Bird and Peter Moore : against the return of Capt. Barlow and Nathaniel Jefferys, at the last general election. Coventry: J. Turner. pp. 1–22, 515. Retrieved 12 December 2019 – via Warwick Digital Collections.
  7. Mulvihill, James (September 2004). "Publicizing royal scandal: Nathaniel Jefferys and the "delicate investigation" (1806)". Nineteenth-Century Contexts. 26 (3): 237–256. doi:10.1080/0890549042000280793. S2CID 159563255.
  8. Morris, Marilyn (21 December 2012). "Princely Debt, Public Credit, and Commercial Values in Late Georgian Britain". Journal of British Studies. 43 (3): 339–365: 362. doi:10.1086/383599. JSTOR 383599.
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