John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth

Who was John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth?

John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth, known as John Wallop, 1st Viscount Lymington from 1720 to 1743, was a British peer and Member of Parliament.

Wallop was the third son of John Wallop, of Farleigh Wallop and his wife Alicia, daughter of William Borlase. The Wallops were an old and influential Hampshire family; his great-grandfather was the regicide Robert Wallop. His father died about 1694, and he succeeded an elder brother, Bluett Wallop, in the family estates in 1707. Wallop was educated at Eton in 1708, in Geneva from 1708 to 1709, and took his Grand Tour through Italy and Germany in 1710.

In 1715, Wallop was returned as a Whig Member of Parliament for both Andover, where a family interest existed, and Hampshire, choosing to sit for the latter. In 1717, he took the side of Stanhope and Sunderland over Walpole and Townshend and was rewarded with appointment as a junior Lord of the Treasury. He was re-elected without opposition at the ensuing by-election in Hampshire. However, he voted against the Government on the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts.

On 20 May 1716, Wallop had married Lady Bridget Bennet, the daughter of Charles Bennet, 1st Earl of Tankerville. They had six sons and four daughters: