Why are the rich and posh traditionally called the Nobs?
It’s a short form of Nabob. A Nabob was originally a governor in the Mughal Empire of India, but by the eighteenth century the title had become an English nickname for the men (and of course they were men) who made fortunes for themselves abroad, but especially in India under the East India Company (the EIC).
Sir Robert was born in 1717 of good yeoman Devon stock, at Lower Headborough Farm. The house is still there, on the road out of town to Buckland. His father was Walter Palk, whose sideline was carting serge produced in the various Ashburton mills. Robert got his early education at Ashburton Grammar School before his uncle paid for him to attend Wadham College Oxford.
Ashburton has a prize example - Sir Robert Palk Bt, MP. And Sir Robert’s career is also a prize example of how our Parliament functioned in the days before reform.
Like many a younger son in those times, he was faced with a choice of the Army or the Church to keep himself, so he chose to be ordained. For several years he struggled as an impecunious curate before taking a chaplaincy on an EIC ship to India. It was 1748, the year the vital foothold of Madras was recaptured from France, and Palk had the good fortune to be befriended by General Stringer Lawrence, the Commander-in-Chief of the EIC in India. He discovered a talent for administration which led him to renounce his vocation and pursue a succession of roles in Indian affairs, finally becoming the Governor of Madras in 1763. Dabbling in government and EIC contracts and trading on his own account (not least in the Chinese opium trade) allowed him to retire to England in 1767 a hugely wealthy man. The eighteenth century did not seem to consider this corruption; after all, Palk’s contemporary Robert Clive (of India) made pots more money.
What should a proper Nabob do next? Typically he bought himself a country estate and a position in Parliament. Sir Robert bought a manor and several hundred acres surrounding the little fishing harbour of Torquay, and land around Ashburton and Hennock; but also Haldon House, on the way to Exeter, with several thousand acres which he developed into a palatial residence for his family home. His friend General Lawrence lived out his retirement at Haldon House, and on his death in 1773 left Sir Robert his own large fortune, some of which was was used to build the Lawrence Belvedere, the prominent white tower on the Haldon skyline.
Parliament? In 1767 Ashburton constituency returned two MPs. About 250 of the burgesses (those who owned freeholds or more valuable tenancies) were qualified to vote. but most would vote as directed by the Lord of the Manor. In 1767 this was George Walpole, the Earl of Orford and son of Britain’s first and longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. One of the two Ashburton MPs having conveniently died, Orford recognised Palk with his Ashburton background and new-found wealth as the man for the job. Palk’s connections with the EIC would also make him popular with Ashburton burgesses, since the EIC was the principal market for the town’s serge production. Palk got the seat without opposition.
But there was a back-room deal. At the next General Election, Palk would become MP for Wareham (another seat in Lord Orford’d power) in order to make room for a candidate more favoured by the Government, one Charles Boone. And in 1774 Palk resumed his seat in Ashburton alongside Boone. No-one was surprised, since by then Palk had bought his own share of the Manor and so partial control of the seat. He remained as an MP for the town until 1787, when he ensured his son Lawrence was elected in his place; that was just how things worked in those days.
There is no record that Sir Robert ever actually spoke in Parliament. In the fluid politics of the time, it seems he initially supported the Tory government, but then opposed their calamitous conduct of the American War of Independence and so earned a baronetcy from the next Whig Government. But not surprisingly, he opposed (without success) the Whigs’ first measures to control the anarchical empire of the EIC.
Sir Robert died in 1798, having started the development of Torquay and a little dynasty of Ashburton MPs. On the way he gave St Andrew’s Church its organ and pulpit, and the town its Tavern Clock, which is a notable feature of our Museum.
Sources:
The Palk Family of Haldon House and Torquay - Iain Fraser 2008.
A Book of the West - Sabine Baring-Gould 1899.
The History of Parliament on-line.
Images of Robert Palk and Lower Headborough Farm reproduced by kind permission of Iain Fraser.