Coningsby Sibthorp DCL ( – 20 July 1779) was an English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons for the borough seat of Lincoln on variously between 1741 and 1768. Sibthorp was a member of the Sibthorp family of Canwick Hall in Lincolnshire which produced several Tory Members of Parliament between the early 18th-century and mid 19th-century, in addition to several botanists. Like the vast majority of Tory Members of Parliament during the Whig supremacy Sibthorp never held ministerial office, maintaining his political independence and Tory principles throughout his political career. On one occasion, however, Sibthorp did serve as the High Sheriff of Lincolnshire.
Background and education
Sibthorp was the second son of John Sibthorpe and his wife Mary, daughter and coheiress of Humphrey Browne of Lincoln. John was the first surviving son of Gervase Sibthorp, who was the first member of the family to settle in Lincolnshire after uprooting himself from Laneham, Nottinghamshire where the family had been centred since the early 17th-century. The Sibthorp family were originally yeoman farmers who were noted for their 'rigid Protestantism'. They were nouveau riche, having married into wealth that enabled them to become firstly bourgeois merchants and then gentry. Sibthorp's parents would have four sons and a daughter. Among his younger brothers was the botanist and Sherardian Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford, Humphry Sibthorp from whom subsequent generations of Sibthorp parliamentarians are descended. Sibthorp was likely named for his maternal great-grandmother, Elizabeth Coningsby who was herself a granddaughter of Sir Ralph Coningsby, an MP for Hertfordshire who served as a JP and a juryman for the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh that condemned him for complicity in the Main Plot.
Sibthorp was educated at the Westminster School in 1718 before matriculating and studying at Hart Hall, Oxford and Magdalen College, Oxford between 1724 and 1728. Sibthorp would receive an MA from Magdalen College on 31 July 1731. Sibthorp's father briefly enjoyed a political career, first appearing as a co-presenter at court of a High Tory address from Lincolnshire. After failing to be elected in 1710 he was successful as a Tory candidate in 1713. The elder Sibthorp made little impact in the Commons and did not put his name forward for re-election in 1715, though this may have been due to the pro-Whig political climate. He would die in April 1718, leaving his wife Mary as the head of the family. Sibthorp's mother exhibited financial acumen and shrewdness through which she was able to purchase an estate for the family. By 1730 she had purchased land in northern Lincolnshire culminating in the purchase of Canwick Hall and the surrounding 300 acres of land from a Catholic family, situated a mile to the south of the town of Lincoln. Sibthorp himself would inherit considerable property from his wealthy unmarried uncle in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, in addition to a house in North Mymms called Skimpans.
Electoral politics
The borough constituency of Lincoln after The Restoration was influenced by the local Monson and Meres gentry families. Daniel Defoe dismissed it as "an ancient, ragged, decay'd and still decaying city" that was probably not worthy of being called a city. The interest of the Sibthorps increased after the bid by Sibthorp's father and the family would represent the borough for a quarter of the eighteenth-century, and for all bar twelve years from 1800 to 1861. The Monsons of Burton, who held one seat continuously from 1722 to 1768 were supportive of the Whigs. From the 1730s the constituency was seemingly influence by venal practices, though elections in the borough were competitive. The interest of the various local gentlemen were often challenged a local third-party composed of local freemen. London outvoters constituted a considerable part of the electorate and were always anxious for a contest.
As noted by Lewis Namier, much more than tradition and influence were required to carry the seat. The Whig interest enjoyed an edge in local politics until 1727 when Tory Charles Hall, a kinsman of Sibthorp, successfully contested a seat. Sibthorp would first hold public office as the High Sheriff of Lincolnshire for the year from 1733. At the 1734 general election Hall stood down for Sibthorp who invested considerable amounts of money to win the seat. Correspondence of the Banks family opined that "it must be money that gives [Sibthorp] the election". Sibthorp was victorious as one of the two candidates elected for the borough with Charles Monson, defeating the nephew of a South Sea Company director handily.