LUTTRELL, Narcissus (1657-1732), of Holborn, London and Little Chelsea, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1679
30 Oct. 1691

Family and Education

b. 12 Aug. 1657, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Francis Luttrell of Gray’s Inn by Catherine, da. of Narcissus Mapowder of Holsworthy, Devon, and coh. to her bro. Anthony. educ. Sheen, Surr. (Mr Aldrich); G. Inn, entered 1673, called 1680, ancient 1706, St. John’s, Camb. 1674. m. (1) lic. 25 Feb. 1682, Sarah (d. 9 July 1722), da. of Daniel Baker, merchant, of Hatton Garden, Mdx., 1s.; (2) 13 May 1725, Mary, da. of John Bearsley of Wolverhampton, Staffs., 1s. d.v.p. suc. fa. 1677.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Cornw. and Mdx. 1690; j.p. Mdx. 1693-1702; bencher, G. Inn 1702-6.

Biography

Luttrell inherited a small property at Trethurffe, near Truro. Proud of his kinship with the Luttrells of Dunster Castle he collated the family muniments, but he was a collector by nature, and, for all his learning and industry, published nothing. With a private income of £300-£475 p.a., he soon abandoned ‘the practice of the law’, and amassed a large collection of books, pamphlets, and manuscripts, which Shaftesbury and Locke both consulted. From 1678 he compiled his Brief Relation of State Affairs, first used by Macaulay, but not printed until 1857.2

Returned for Bossiney at the autumn election of 1679, Luttrell was appointed to no committees and made no speeches in the second Exclusion Parliament, though he is said to have been ‘one of the warm promoters of the exclusion bill’. He was probably the ‘Mr Luttrell’ whom the townsmen of Barnstaple preferred as a court candidate in 1688. He sat as a Whig in the second Parliament of William III, when he kept a valuable parliamentary diary. With increasing prosperity he was able to purchase a house at Chelsea from the third Earl of Shaftesbury in 1710. He died on 27 June 1732 after a long illness and was buried at Chelsea, the last of this branch of the family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Vivian, Vis. Devon, 537-41; H. C. Maxwell Lyte, Hist. Dunster, 521-5; Dunster and its Lords, 44-45.
  • 2. Hist. Dunster, 518-25; N. and Q. clii. 111; ccvii. 452; Bk. Collector, vi. 16.
  • 3. Hist. Dunster, 521-5; DNB; N. and Q. clii. 111; information from Prof. H. Horwitz.