LONDON, John (1670-1734), of Stoke Newington, Mdx. and Colne Engaine, Essex

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

1710 - 17 Mar. 1711
1713 - 1722

Family and Education

bap. 9 Jan. 1670, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Samuel London of Colne Engaine by Mary, da. of Richard Bridge of Wakes Colne, Essex.  m. 1s. 1da.  suc. bro. by 1721.1

Offices Held

Burgess, Wilton by 1710.2

Member, Russia Co. 1730–d.

Biography

London, ‘a noted Blackwell Hall factor’ and in Queen Anne’s reign a partner in several highly profitable regimental clothing contracts, was descended from Roger London, who had acquired the manor of Overhill in Colne Engaine in 1551. He himself purchased an estate at Great Tey in Essex some time between 1707 and 1713. He was a Dissenter, attending the meeting-house of the Presbyterian minister John Shower (brother of Sir Bartholomew*) in Old Jewry, and this fact, together with his trade, probably explains his choice of Wilton as a constituency. Certainly in 1710, he was able to exploit both assets: his voters included fellow Dissenters and among the accusations of bribery levelled against him was one that he had promised to a clothier ‘the clothing of one or more regiments, and if he voted for him, he should never want work’. His use both of his Nonconformist allies and of his money counted strongly against him as far as the new House was concerned, and he was unseated on petition. He was wrongly listed as a Tory in the ‘Hanover list’ of 1710, and in the list of ‘Tory patriots’ who opposed the continuance of the war in 1711. Returned again at Wilton in 1713, London voted on 18 Mar. 1714 against the expulsion of Richard Steele. In this Parliament he was named to four drafting committees, managing through the House the bill to amend an Act of 1708 regarding imports of linen thread. As a citizen of London he signed the proclamation of King George I, and he was a member of the ‘Hanover Society’, a Whig club co-ordinating party efforts in the common council in the early years of the new reign. He was classified as a Whig in the Worsley list and in two lists of the Members re-elected in 1715. London left Parliament at the 1722 election but remained active in business until his death on 25 Nov. 1734.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. Morant, Essex, ii. 219; info. from Prof. H. G. Horwitz.
  • 2. CJ, xvi. 559.
  • 3. Cal. Treas. Bks. xxvi. 179, 210, 307, 324, 461; xxvii. 247–9, 259; xxviii. 140–1, 310; Morant, 203; CJ, xvi. 559; DNB (Shower, John); Pembroke mss at Wilton House, ‘M[emoran]dum 16 Feb. 1710’, London to James Harris, 17 Aug. 1714; Boyer, Pol. State, viii. 117; London Rec. Soc. xvii. 11, 34–35, 37, 40, 43–46; London Mag. 1734, p. 608.