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SOUTHBY, John (c.1650-1741), of Carswell, Buckland, Berks.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. c.1650, 1st s. of Richard Southby. educ. Wadham, Oxf. matric. 19 Dec. 1668, aged 18; M. Temple 1671. m. 23 Jan. 1677, Mary, da. of Thomas Trenchard of Wolveton, Dorset, 1s. 2da. suc. fa. 1704.1
Offices Held
Commr. for assessment, Berks. 1677-80, 1689-90; freeman, Abingdon Sept. 1688; j.p. Berks. by 1701-d.2
Biography
A strong Whig like his father and his brother-in-law John Trenchard, Southby came under suspicion at the time of the Rye House Plot. He was apparently a Whig collaborator, the King’s electoral agents reporting in 1688 that he was proposed by the Presbyterian party as candidate for Abingdon, ten miles from his home. He was returned at a by-election in May 1689, but left no trace on the records of the Convention. He was unseated in favour of Sir John Stonhouse on 8 Jan. 1690, and did not contest the constituency again, though he had hopes of election for Oxford University in 1695. He was buried at Buckland on 1 Apr. 1741, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.3