Thomas Inwen (died 1743), of St. Saviour's, Southwark was a British brewer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1730 to 1743.
Inwen was a Southwark brewer. He married Sarah Hucks, daughter of William Hucks brewer of St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields. [1]
Inwen was returned as Member of Parliament for Southwark at a by-election on 23 January 1730 and was returned again at the 1734 British general election. He voted against the Administration in all recorded divisions. On 10 March 1732 he supported a bill to stop hops being imported from America into Ireland. He was re-elected at the 1741 British general election. He did not vote in the election of the chairman of the elections committee in December 1741 and the division on the Hanoverians in December 1742.
Southwark was a constituency centred on the Southwark district of South London. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the English Parliament from 1295 to 1707, to the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and to the UK Parliament until its first abolition for the 1885 general election. A seat of the same name, covering a smaller area than the last form of the earlier seat in the west of the original and beyond its boundaries to the southwest, was created in 1950 and abolished in 1974.
The 1734 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 8th Parliament of Great Britain to be summoned, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. Robert Walpole's increasingly unpopular Whig government lost ground to the Tories and the opposition Whigs, but still had a secure majority in the House of Commons. The Patriot Whigs were joined in opposition by a group of Whig members led by Lord Cobham known as the Cobhamites, or 'Cobham's Cubs'
The 1741 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 9th Parliament of Great Britain to be summoned, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. The election saw support for the government party increase in the quasi-democratic constituencies which were decided by popular vote, but the Whigs lost control of a number of rotten and pocket boroughs, partly as a result of the influence of the Prince of Wales, and were consequently re-elected with the barest of majorities in the Commons, Walpole's supporters only narrowly outnumbering his opponents.
Inwen died on 19 April 1743, leaving his property in trust to his only daughter, Sarah, who married Henry Howard, 10th Earl of Suffolk.
Sarah Howard, Countess of Suffolk, formerly Sarah Inwen, was the wife of Henry Howard, 10th Earl of Suffolk, and subsequently the wife of Lucius Cary, 7th Viscount Falkland.
Henry Howard, 10th Earl of Suffolk was the only child of Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, and Charles Howard, 9th Earl of Suffolk. He was styled Lord Walden from 1731 to 1733. He married Sarah Inwen, daughter of Thomas Inwen and Sarah Hucks, on 13 May 1735, but died on 22 April 1745 at age 39 with no surviving issue and no brothers to whom the title could be passed. The line of Earls of Suffolk back to Henry's great-great grandfather Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk thus died out, and the title passed to a great grandson of the 1st Earl, Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Berkshire.
