COPE, Jonathan II (c.1692-1765), of Bruern Abbey, Oxon.

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

1713 - 1722

Family and Education

b. c.1692, 1st s. of Jonathan Cope I*.  educ. Eton 1706; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 18 Feb. 1708, aged 16.  m. ?1717, Mary (d.1755), da. of Sir Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Bt.*, 1s. d.v.p. 5da.  suc. fa. 1694; Sir John Cope, 5th Bt.*, to Hanwell, Oxon. 1721;  cr. Bt. 1 Mar. 1714.1

Offices Held

Freeman and bailiff, Oxford 1714.2

Biography

Under his father’s will, Cope was to be left under the charge of his mother unless she remarried. When she did so the provisions of the will, which appointed Sir Thomas Pershall, Sir Robert Jenkinson [?2nd Bt.*] and Henry Farmer as guardians, presumably came into effect. Little is known about Cope’s early life, although by the time of his election he was probably residing at Bruern Abbey, Oxfordshire. His election for Banbury in 1713 probably owed much to his presumptive interest in the Hanwell estates of the Cope family, just two and a half miles from Banbury, plus the backing of the Norths. During the 1713 Parliament his only significant action was to act as a teller on 23 Mar. 1714 against setting a date for hearing the London election petition. He was considered a Tory on the Worsley list, although another list comparing Members elected in 1713 and 1715 classed him as a Whig. This latter assignation must have been erroneous, as Lord Guildford backed him at the 1715 election with reference to ‘my certain knowledge he acquitted himself as an honest gentleman, with due regard to the true interest of his country’. Cope continued to sit for Banbury until 1722 when his third cousin, Monoux Cope†, was elected, something of an irony since the previous year Cope had inherited the Hanwell estates, which would have come to Monoux’s father, Sir John Cope, 6th Bt.*, had the latter not been disinherited. Cope died on 28 Mar. 1765, and was buried at Hanwell.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Stuart Handley

Notes

  • 1. Baker, Northants. ii. 51.
  • 2. Oxford Council Acts (Oxf. Hist. Soc. n.s. x), 87.
  • 3. PCC 217 Box; 175 Rushworth; VCH Oxon. x. 89; Cake and Cockhorse, iii. 55; Gent. Mag. 1765, p. 198.