Lieutenant-GeneralJohn West, 1st Earl De La WarrKBPCFRS (4 April 1693 – 16 March 1766), styled The Honourable John West until 1723 and known as The Lord De La Warr between 1723 and 1761, was a British soldier, courtier and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1722.
In 1731 Lord De La Warr was sworn of the Privy Council[5] and appointed Treasurer of the Household, a position he held until 1737.[1] In 1732 he was appointed speaker of the House of Lords in the absence of Lord King, the Lord Chancellor. He was a supporter of tough sanctions against the city of Edinburgh after the Porteous Riots of 1736. The latter year he was sent on a special mission to Germany to escort Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha to Britain, where she was to become the wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Lord Hervey, who described De La Warr as a "long, lank, awkward person", thought that "no fitter selection could have been made to disarm the jealousy of the prince, and that a more unpolished ambassador for such an occasion could not have been found in any of the Goth or Vandal courts of Germany." De La Warr and the future Princess of Wales landed at Greenwich in April 1736.[1]
Lord De La Warr was twice married. He married firstly Lady Charlotte, daughter of Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty and Lady Elizabeth Spencer, on 25 May 1721. They had two sons and two daughters, including Lady Diana, wife of Sir John Clavering.[1] After his first wife's death in February 1735 he married secondly Anne, daughter of Nehemiah Walker and widow of George Nevill, 13th Baron Bergavenny, in 1742. There were no children from this marriage. Anne died in June 1748. Lord De La Warr remained a widower until his death in March 1766, aged 72. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John, Viscount Cantelupe.[8]
^New Jersey Colonial Documents, Archives of the State of New Jersey, First Series, Vol. V; Daily Advertiser Publishing House, Newark, New Jersey, 1882. pp. 490–491
