VIVIAN, John (1647-91), of Trewan, St. Columb Major, Cornw.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 31 Oct. 1647, 2nd s. of John Vivian (d.1696) of Trewan; bro. of Francis Vivian and Thomas Vivian. educ. Exeter, Oxf. 1667; M. Temple 1667, called 1675. m. (1) 10 Nov. 1679, Anne (bur. 19 May 1682), da. and coh. of Matthew Hals of Efford, Egg Buckland, Devon, s.p.; (2) 1684, Mary, da. of Sir Joseph Sawle of Penrice, Cornw., 2s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Cornw. 1689-90.

Biography

Vivian’s father does not appear to have played an active part in the Civil War, but he served on the Cornish assessment commissions from 1647 to 1649. One of the Cornish gentlemen who declared for a free Parliament at Truro in December 1659, he was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak with an income estimated at £1,000 p.a. Vivian himself, a barrister, was elected as ‘John Vivian junior’ for Mitchell in 1685, on the interest of his brother Francis, who signed the return. His only committee was on a bill to enable a Devonshire gentleman called Savery to change his name to Serle. But it was reported in Cornwall that after ‘speaking somewhat in favour of the tinners’ he had been set upon and killed as he left the House with (Sir) Joseph Tredenham. He died in his father’s lifetime and was buried at St. Columb Major on 12 May 1691. A private Act of Parliament was passed in 1694 to enable his father and elder brother to sell lands in order to raise portions for his children.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Vivian, Vis. Devon, 755-6.
  • 2. M. Coate, Cornw. in Gt. Civil War, 307-8; Gilbert, Paroch. Hist. Cornw. i. 228, Glos. RO D1799/C5, Vivian to Blathwayt, 29 June 1685; HMC Lords, n.s. i. 326.