Perceval (Percival), Sir John (1683–1748), 1st earl of Egmont , politician, was born 12 July 1683 at Burton, near Kanturk, Co. Cork. He was descended from Richard Perceval (qv) and Sir Philip Perceval (qv) and was the second son of Sir John Perceval, 3rd baronet, landowner, and officeholder, and Catherine, daughter of Sir Edward Dering (qv), of Surrenden, Kent. Before he was nine years of age his parents and elder brother had died; he succeeded to the estates and the baronetcy, and a grand-uncle, Sir Robert Southwell (qv), became his guardian.
He was at Westminster School in 1698 and Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1699. Though he took no degree, from his youth he was earnest, attentive to duty, and dedicated to edifying pursuits. In 1700 he undertook a carefully planned tour of England, and in 1701 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1703 he was returned to the Irish house of commons for Co. Cork while still under age, and was reelected in 1713 and 1714. In parliament he was at first content to be guided by the chief secretary, Edward Southwell (qv), son of his recently deceased guardian, and the lord chancellor, Sir Richard Cox (qv). For his loyalty in his first session he was made a privy counsellor in 1704, an appointment renewed till his death. He undertook the grand tour, 1705–7, and was active again in the parliamentary session of 1709.
His politics were tory in these years, though he had no sympathy with catholics or Jacobites, at whose hands his family's estates had suffered much destruction in 1690. He always expressed a distaste for ‘faction’, and became alienated from tory extremism during the ascendancy of the lord chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps (qv). The polarisation of Irish politics between 1710 and 1713 left him vulnerable to the Brodricks, his whig rivals in Co. Cork, who had designs on his seat. His difficulties were ended when he succeeded in obtaining a peerage in 1715; in the house of lords, he completed the transition from moderate tory to moderate whig.
Though he was a considerable Irish landowner and maintained a lifelong interest in Irish politics, he lived in London for most of his life (and was indignant when the Irish parliament introduced a tax on pensions and salaries paid to absentees). In 1719–20 he organised Irish opposition in London to the claims of the British house of lords to an appellate jurisdiction over Ireland. He was a regular attender at court, and sat (1727–34) for Harwich in the British house of commons, where he had some success in promoting trade concessions for Ireland. Other interests included prison conditions and the Georgia colony, of which he was a co-founder in 1732.
Disillusionment with politics eventually set in – perhaps inevitably, given his character – but it had never been his exclusive occupation. He inherited a family interest in the fine arts, fostered during his Italian tour. He was a competent instrumentalist, and regularly gave private concerts. In religion he was an active and pious anglican, and a correspondent of George Berkeley (qv). He had become 5th baronet on the death of his elder brother in 1691. He was created Baron Perceval (1715), Viscount Perceval (1723), and earl of Egmont (1733), all in the Irish peerage, of whose rights he was jealously protective.
He married (1710) Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Parker, of Erwarton, Suffolk, and his wife Mary, daughter of Samuel Fortrey. They enjoyed a notably intimate and affectionate family life; of their children, one son and two daughters survived to adulthood. Their son, John Perceval (1711–70), sat for Dingle in the Irish commons from 1731 to 1748, when he succeeded to his father's peerage. He was a member of the British commons, 1741–62, and was a close adviser to Frederick, prince of Wales. His third son, Spencer Perceval (1762–1812), was prime minister at the time of his death by assassination.
William Perceval (1671–1734), a clergyman and a leader of the highflying wing of the Church of Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne, was a cousin. From a branch of the family established at Temple House in Co. Sligo, he was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was archdeacon of Cashel, 1703–25, and dean of Emly, 1714–34. With Francis Higgins (qv) he undertook a controversial mission from the Irish to the English convocation in 1706.
The 1st earl died in London on 1 May 1748. Two portraits of him are reproduced by Rand. He left extensive personal papers, most of which are in the BL. Other family papers, including correspondence of William Perceval, are in the PRONI (D 906).