Sir William Earle Welby, 2nd Baronet

Lieutenant Sir William Earle Welby, 2nd Baronet (14 November 1768 – 3 November 1852) was a British land-owner, baronet and Member of Parliament for Grantham from 1807 to 1820. He also served as High Sheriff of Lincolnshire from 1823 to 1824.

William Earle Welby was born on 14 November 1768 at Denton in Lincolnshire. He was the eldest son of Sir William Earle Welby, 1st Baronet, of Denton and the only son by his first wife, Penelope Glynne, a daughter of Sir John Glynne, 6th Baronet, and his wife Honora Conway.

The younger Welby was admitted at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1786 and matriculated the following year, though he took no degree. He worked at the Newark banking firm of Welby & Co. until his father's death, and was a Lieutenant in the Ossington Volunteers from 1806.

Welby married on 30 August 1792, Wilhelmina Spry, daughter and heir of William Spry, who was Governor of Barbados from 1767 to 1772, and his wife Katherine Cholmeley. She died on 4 February 1847. Together, they had seven daughters and three sons:

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Sir William Manners, Bt., was attempting to take control of the borough of Grantham, which had previously been controlled by two land-owning aristocrats, the Duke of Rutland and Lord Brownlow; Manners's grandfather, Lord William Manners, had purchased the manor, his son accumulated much wealth, and Sir William purchased houses in Grantham and worked to be returned as a member of parliament for the Borough. Welby's father, who was Lord of the Manor of nearby Denton, stood to oppose Manners in 1802, being supported by Rutland and Brownlow, and was elected, serving until 1806. After he declined to stand again, a compromise was formed between Manners and the land-owners, but it did not last and, by the time the 1807 elections began, Manners was hoping to control the Borough's seats in Parliament.

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