BOYNTON, William (1641-89), of Barmston, Yorks.

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

Constituency

Dates

11 Nov. 1680
1681

Family and Education

b. 14 July 1641, 2nd s. of Sir Francis Boynton, 2nd Bt. (d.1695), of Burton Agnes by Constance, da. of William, 1st Visct. Saye and Sele. m. 15 Oct. 1661, Elizabeth, da. and coh. of John Barnard, merchant, of Hull, 1s. 2da.1

Offices Held

Capt. of militia ft. Yorks. Oct. 1660, lt.-col. 1661-?80, dep. lt. (E. Riding) 1670-?80, 1689-d., commr. for assessment 1673-80, 1689, j.p. Feb. 1688-?d.2

Biography

Boynton’s ancestors had held land in Yorkshire since the 13th century and first represented the county in 1309. His grandfather, a leading Puritan, supported the Parliamentarians in the Civil War and was returned to the Long Parliament as a recruiter for Scarborough, but died before Pride’s Purge. His father also held a number of local offices during the war and Interregnum, but in January 1660 he joined in the Yorkshire rising led by Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax, in favour of a free Parliament. He signed the Yorkshire petition to George Monck and served on the lieutenancy after the Restoration, but apparently lacked parliamentary ambitions.3

Boynton was returned to the second Exclusion Parliament for Hedon at a by-election. Probably an exclusionist, he was not appointed to any committees and made no recorded speeches in this or the third Exclusion Parliament. He does not seem to have stood in 1685, and at the time of Monmouth’s rebellion, James II ordered the arrest of Boynton and his father as ‘disaffected and suspicious persons’. He may have become a Whig collaborator as he was appointed to the East Riding commission of the peace in February 1688, but he did not regain his place on the lieutenancy until after the Revolution. He predeceased his father and was buried at Burton Agnes on 17 Aug. 1689. His grandson, the 4th baronet, was returned for Hedon as a Whig in 1734.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. Clay, Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 145-52.
  • 2. SP44/165/327.
  • 3. J. T. Cliffe, Yorks. Gentry, 273-4, 290, 306, 329, 337; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 295; VCH Yorks. N. Riding, ii. 221, 369.
  • 4. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 228; Clay, 149.