Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, where he was returned as a Tory MP in the interest of John Richmond Webb, the Tory governor of the island. He was returned again at the 1713 British general election. In the debates following the celebrated judgment in Ashby v White, Dolben argued strongly that the House of Commons had exclusive jurisdiction over all disputed Parliamentary elections. Judge When Dolben became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1701, he joined the King's Inn, the professional body which governed the Irish Bar He retained the post on the accession of Queen Anne in 1702. He remained a member of the English House of Commons, and divided his time between England and Ireland, somewhat to the neglect of his judicial duties. Though he was said to be on bad terms with Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1708, his career in Ireland seems to have been uneventful. He was one of the few High Court judges who refused to become involved in the bitter feud between the Crown and Dublin Corporation in 1713–4. Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because of his wealth and social standing (he had married an heiress and was made a baronet in 1704) he was the only senior Irish judge who was not removed from office in the general purge of the Irish judiciary which followed the death of Queen Anne. He solicited for a seat on the English Bench but did not receive it and remained on the Irish Bench until he retired in 1720. He was a bencher of his Temple and acted as its treasurer in 1721. He is said to have been one of the few investors who enriched themselves, rather than suffering losses, in the South Sea Bubble. Family and personality By 1683, Dolben married Anne Mulso, eldest daughter and co-heiress with her sister Elizabeth (who married his brother John) of Tanfield Mulso of Finedon Hall, Northamptonshire and his wife Mary Luther, a marriage which greatly increased his wealth. They had one surviving son, Sir John Dolben, 2nd Baronet, who was father of Sir William Dolben, 3rd Baronet, a leader in the movement for the abolition of slavery. He died at Finedon in October 1722. For many years he was greatly troubled by the profligacy of his brother John, an inveterate gambler who ran through all his