Family and Education

b. c.1618, 1st s. of Walter Quatremaine of Shabbington, Bucks. by w. Elizabeth. educ. Brasenose, Oxf. matric. 10 Oct. 1634, aged 16, BA 1635, MA (Magdalen Hall) 1638, MD (Pembroke) 1657. m. by 1649, Catherine (d. July 1661), 1da.; (2) 16 June 1662, Mary (d.1689), da. of Sir Thomas Dyke of Horeham, Waldron, Suss., 1s. d.v.p. 1da. suc. fa. 1634.1

Offices Held

Physician in ordinary July 1660-d.2

Commr. for assessment, Westminster 1663-d., Mdx. 1664-d.

FRCP 1661-d.; FRS 1663-d.

Biography

Quatremaine came from an Oxfordshire yeoman family that had been living at Chalgrove since the 12th century, and was doubtless in some way connected with Richard Quatremayns, who represented the county in three 15th-century Parliaments. He is said to have served with the royalist army in the Civil War, presumably as a doctor, but he was not required to compound. It is likely that both his wives came from Sussex, as by 1650 he was resident in Lewes and four years later he was party to a fine of a local manor. Roger Whitley included him among the Sussex Royalists in 1657, but after arranging Ormonde’s escape in the following winter he had to take refuge with the exiled Court. He was promised the office of second physician in ordinary ‘as soon as the King’s family shall be settled’, and accompanied Charles II to England at the Restoration. He was granted the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians at the King’s request.3

It was probably on the Admiralty interest that Quatremaine was returned for Shoreham at a by-election in 1662, though his second marriage to a valetudinarian patient a few months later connected him with an influential East Sussex family. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was named to only ten committees, none of which was of political importance. He enjoyed an extensive practice at Court, ranging from Lord Chancellor Clarendon to Joseph Williamson, but he invested most of his savings in unprofitable land reclamation schemes. In particular, he had his eye on some marshland near Portsmouth, formerly in the hands of the Wandesford family, and applied for a grant as early as November 1660. In 1664 Lady Wandesford promoted a bill to confirm her title. Quatremaine was appointed to the committee, which never reported, and the land was granted to him later in the year. He was listed as a court dependant, and named to the committee for confirming the charter of the Royal College of Physicians. During the plague year he went to York with the Duke, but attended the Oxford session and was appointed to the committee for preventing the spread of infection. He died ‘in the prime of life’, and was buried at St. Martin in the Fields on 11 June 1667. His widow and daughters continued to live in Whitehall, and were granted a pension of £60 p.a., though this was seldom paid until (Sir) Stephen Fox intervened in their favour. No later member of the family entered Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: B. M. Crook

Notes

• 1. W. F. Carter, Quatremaines of Oxon. 121-8.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 141.
• 3. Carter, 65, 71, 99; D. Macleane, Hist. Pemb. Coll. (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xxxiii), 237; E. Suss. RO, Lewes All Saints par. reg.; Fines of Manors (Suss. Rec. Soc. xix), 215; Cal. Cl. SP, iv. 13; Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 57; CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 358; 1658-9, p. 110; 1663-4, p. 385; Pepys Diary, 22 May 1660.
• 4. Bramston Autobiog. (Cam. Soc. xxxii), 26, 349-50, CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 329; 1664-5, pp. 13, 72, 510; Eg. 2538, f. 617; Westminster Abbey Reg. (Harl. Soc. x), 154; LS13/231/5.