BURRIDGE, John II (c.1681-1753), of London and Lyme Regis, Dorset

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1710 - 28 Feb. 1728

Family and Education

b. c.1681, 2nd s. of Robert Burridge of Lyme Regis, merchant, by his w. Mary.  m. 1695, Martha, da. and h. of Warwick Ledgingham of Ottery St. Mary, Devon, s.p.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Lyme Regis 1704, mayor 1726–7.2

Biography

Burridge broke with the tradition of his family, whose mercantile activities had hitherto been centred on Lyme Regis, by establishing himself as a London merchant and shipowner, trading to the West Indies, Spain and America. He retained some interest in the West country, however, where his wife had inherited the manor of Ottery St. Mary in Devon and he himself had a reversionary life interest in the manor of Thorn Falcon in Somerset, settled on him at the time of his marriage by his uncle, John Burridge I*. He later bought from his father the reversion of Charmouth in Dorset. In the winter of 1707–8 Burridge was one of the merchants whose complaints about shipping losses led to a Junto-inspired inquiry in the Lords into the shortage of cruisers and convoys, the main object of which was to oust George Churchill* from the Admiralty. In 1710 Burridge succeeded to what had virtually become the family seat at Lyme, where he had in addition obtained an interest of his own by making a loan of £300 to the corporation and securing a mortgage on the town’s waterworks. Classed as doubtful in the ‘Hanover list’ of the new Parliament, he soon made his political allegiance clear by voting for the motion of ‘No Peace without Spain’ on 7 Dec. 1711. On 6 June 1712 he told in favour of a bill to continue the Act enabling Quakers to affirm. He voted against the French wines duties bill on 6 May 1713. Marked as a Whig who was engaged in trade, Burridge also voted against the French commerce bill on 18 June 1713. In Queen Anne’s last Parliament he voted on 18 Mar. 1714 against the expulsion of Richard Steele. He was listed as a Whig in the Worsley list and two comparative analyses of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments. He remained an MP until he was unseated in 1728, and died on 2 Feb. 1753.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. Add. 32707, f. 405; PCC 1 Ent, 252 Price; C. D. Whetham, Manor Bk. of Ottery St. Mary, 65; Dorset RO, Burridge mss B7/B6/10.
  • 2. Dorset RO, Lyme Regis mss B6/14, 23 Oct. 1704; G. Roberts, Hist. and Antiquities of Lyme Regis (1834), p. 383.
  • 3. LJ, xviii. 390; Burridge mss B7/B6/10.