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DAVERS, Sir Robert, 2nd Bt. (1653-1722), of Rougham and Rushbrooke, Suff.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. 1653, o.s. of Sir Robert Davers, 1st Bt., of Rougham by Eleanor ?Luke. m. 2 Feb. 1682, Mary, da. and coh. of Thomas Jermyn, M.P., 2nd Baron Jermyn, 6s. 5da. suc. fa. June 1685.
Offices Held
Member of Barbados council 1682; baron, later chief baron, of the Exchequer and justice of court of pleas in Barbados 1683-c.1688.
Biography
The founder of the Davers family was Robert Davers, of unknown parentage, who migrated to Barbados in 1635, made a fortune as a sugar planter, bought the Rougham estate, three miles from Bury St. Edmunds, about 1680, and was created a baronet in 1682. His son, the 2nd baronet, who was born in Barbados, and returned finally to England in 1687, acquired Rushbrooke on his father-in-law’s death in 1703, buying the shares of his sisters-in-law in the estate. After sitting for Bury St. Edmunds, he was returned both for that borough and for Suffolk in 1705, opting to serve for the county, which he represented for the rest of his life. A Tory, a member of the October Club, and a friend of Harley’s,1 voting consistently against the Government after George I’s accession, he was included in the list of leading Jacobites sent to the Pretender in 1721.2 Said to have grown ‘so heavy that unless you excite him he will not move’,3 he died of diabetes 1 Oct. 1722.