LAROCHE, John (c.1700-52), of Pall Mall, and Englefield Green, Surr.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

31 Jan. 1727 - 20 Apr. 1752

Family and Education

b. c.1700, 1st s. of Peter Crothaire (afterwards Laroche) of Bordeaux, barber to Prince George of Denmark. educ. Queens’, Camb. 1717; M. Temple 1717. m. bef. 1731, Elizabeth, da. of Isaac Garnier of St. James’s, Westminster, apothecary to the army, 3s. 4da. suc. fa. 1745.

Offices Held

Assistant, R. African Co. 1732-46.

Biography

Laroche, a merchant of Huguenot extraction, seems to have begun life as steward of the Robartes family,1 who had the chief interest at Bodmin. Henry Robartes, 3rd Earl of Radnor, left him £1,000 in his will in 1741, and John Robartes, 4th Earl of Radnor, left his Cornish estates to Laroche’s children in 1757.2 After standing unsuccessfully for Bodmin in June 1725 he was returned for it as a Whig in 1727, subsequently building up a strong interest of his own in the corporation. His only recorded speeches were made on 15 April 1736 in favour of a bill designed to check the alienation of lands to charities and on 4 Feb. 1740 and 21 Jan 1741 in defence of the board of Georgia trustees, of whom he was an original member.3 He voted against the Hessians in 1730 but otherwise regularly voted with the Administration till the critical divisions before the fall of Walpole, when he was absent, owing to illness, from those on the chairman of the elections committee and on the Westminster election petition in December 1741.4 After Walpole’s fall he supported successive Administrations till his death, 20 Apr. 1752.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. MacLean, Trigg Minor, i. 153 n.
  • 2. PCC 49 Spurway; PCC 231 Hering.
  • 3. Harley Diary, 15 Apr. 1736; HMC Egmont Diary, iii. 108, 180.
  • 4. Coxe, Walpole, iii. 583, 586.