{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Pinckney Wilkinson''' (c. 1693–1784) was a British merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1784. Wilkinson was a wealthy London merchant.<ref name = HOP>{{cite web| url = http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/wilkinson-pinckney-1693-1784| title=WILKINSON, Pinckney (?1693-1784), of Burnham, Norf. | publisher= History of Parliament Online| access-date = 1 November 2017}}</ref> He married Mary Thurloe (or Thurlow) at Lincoln's Inn chapel on 16 December 1735. She was an heiress and he received about £10,000 out of her fortune. In 1752, he purchased the estate Polestead or Westgate, Norfolk<ref name= Chancery>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LPNMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA40 |page= 40 |title= Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery: During the Time of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, Volume 2 |author= William Brown |publisher= C. C. Little and J. Brown | date= 1844 | access-date=30 November 2017}}</ref> and built Burnham Westgate Hall in the 1750s using Matthew Brettingham, the Holkham estate architect.<ref>[http://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-houses-for-sale-and-property-news/an-exceptional-country-estate-in-norfolk-17593#w6fYx7F33cQT3zLg.99 Country Life Burnham Westgate Hall]</ref> He and Mary had two daughters and a son and he retired from business when this son died in 1760. In the 1760s he held about £50,000 of Government stock, and about £6,000 of Bank stock<ref name=HOP/> and when his wife died in 1771 he held her property in trust.<ref name= Chancery/> His daughter Anne married Thomas Pitt on 29 July 1771. It was said he gave her £30,000 down, and at least as much more in expectation, and Pitt referred to "the great inheritance’ his wife brought".<ref name=HOP/> Wilkinson's second daughter Mary married John Smith without her parents’ consent.<ref name=Chancery/>
At the 1774 general election Wilkinson was returned by his son-in-law Pitt, who stood himself, as Member of Parliament for Old Sarum. They were returned again in 1780. Wilkinson voted with the Opposition, and apparently never spoke in Parliament.<ref name=HOP/> He suffered a stroke in May 1782 and was incapacitated for his last two years in parliament.<ref name= Pitt>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2_ZbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR93 |page= 93 |title= Narrative and Proofs: By Thomas Lord Camelford, Volume 7 |author= Thomas Pitt Baron Camelford| date= 1785| access-date=30 November 2017}}</ref>
Wilkinson died on 26 February 1784 aged 90.<ref name = HOP/> His will became a case in Chancery mainly because the Smiths had been left out of it. There were also considerable complications regarding which property was his and which that of his wife.<ref name=Chancery/> John and Mary Smith's son, Sidney, became a distinguished admiral, serving in the American and French revolutionary wars and Napoleonic Wars.<ref name= Naval>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xHbCsEsERpEC&pg=PA303|page= 303 |title = The Naval Chronicle: Volume 22, July-December 1809: Containing a General and Biographical History of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom with a Variety of Original Papers on Nautical Subjects, Volume 22.|author= James Stanier Clarke, John McArthur |publisher= Cambridge University Press | date= 2010 |isbn= 9781108018616 | access-date=30 November 2017}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|gb}} {{s-bef | before = William Gerard Hamilton | before2 = John Craufurd }} {{s-title | title = Member of Parliament for Old Sarum | years = 1774–1784 | with = Thomas Pitt (the younger) 1774-1784 | with2= The Hon. John Villiers 1784 }} {{s-aft | after = George Hardinge | after2 = The Hon. John Villiers }}
{{s-end}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Pinckney}} Category:1690s births Category:1784 deaths Category:18th-century British merchants Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Category:British MPs 1774–1780 Category:British MPs 1780–1784