Family and Education

b. 22 Apr. 1604, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Thomas Venables of Kinderton, being 1st s. by 2nd w. Anne, da. of Sir cotton Cotton Gargrave of Nostell, Yorks. educ. L. Inn 1620. m. (1) c.1622, Mary, da. of Sir Richard Wilbraham, 1st Bt., of Woodhey, Cheshire, 1s. d.v.p.; (2) settlement 11 Sept. 1628, Frances, da. of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley, Cheshire, 4s. (2 d.v.p.) 2da. suc. fa. 1605.1

Offices Held

Sheriff, Cheshire 1633-4, j.p. by 1634-46, July 1660-d.; commr. for disarming recusants 1641, array 1642, assessment Aug. 1660-1, 1663-d., corporations 1662-3, oyer and terminer, Chester 1663.2

Biography

Venables rejoiced in the style ‘baron of Kinderton’, an honour said to have been created by the 1st Earl of Chester soon after the Norman Conquest. The family’s parliamentary record was less impressive, though an ancestor sat for the county in two Tudor Parliaments. Venables inherited eight manors in Cheshire, with salt works in Nantwich and Middlewich, and property in Staffordshire, yielding some £3,450 p.a. In the Long Parliament he voted against the attainder of Strafford. His neighbour Sir William Brereton described him as ‘very virulent in his courses against the Parliament ... an enemy to reformation and a tyrant among his tenants’. He joined the King at Oxford during the Civil War, though, unlike his son, he was not in arms. They jointly compounded for their delinquency in 1647 for £6,150. He was included by Roger Whitley among the Cheshire Royalists in 1658, and again returned for the county in 1661. He was not an active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, being named to only 11 committees, of which the two most important were those for the uniformity and corporations bills. He died on 13 Feb. 1669, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Gillian Hampson

Notes

• 1. Ormerod, Cheshire, iii. 199-200.
• 2. Chester mss. assembly bk. 2, 137v.
• 3. Keeler, Long Parl. 372; SP23/196/477-91.