Family and Education

bap. 1668, s. of George Trenchard of Charminster, Dorset by w. Mary.  m. 20 Feb. 1705, Mary, da. and h. of John Tuckfield of Little Fulford, wid. of Francis Fulford*, s.p.1

Offices Held

Cornet, Mq. of Winchester’s vol. regt. of horse 1690; lt. Thomas Erle’s* Ft. 1694, half-pay 1698; lt. 34 Ft. 1702.

Freeman, Dorchester 1713.2

Biography

Trenchard was a Tory in an otherwise impeccably Whig family, his most notable kinsmen in this period being his first cousin Sir John Trenchard*, secretary of state from 1693 to 1695. He made his career in the army, but retired after his marriage, which had brought him an estate in Devon. He was returned for Dorchester in 1713 with a fellow Tory after a contest against two Whigs. Re-elected in 1715 he made little mark in the House. His party allegiance was sufficiently clear for both the Worsley list and an analysis of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments to mark him as a Tory. The classification of him as a Whig in yet another comparative analysis of the two Parliaments was presumably an error based on his family’s strong Whiggish reputation. As inactive in the House after the Hanoverian succession as he had been before, Trenchard died on 28 Mar. 1720.

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 326–7.
• 2. C. H. Mayo, Dorchester Recs. 430.