ONSLOW, Denzil (c.1642-1721), of Pyrford, Surr.

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

Constituency

Dates

1679 - 1681
1689 - 1695
1695 - 1698
1701 - 1713
12 Mar. 1714 - 10 Dec. 1717
25 Dec. 1717 - 27 June 1721

Family and Education

b. c.1642, 6th s. of Sir Richard Onslow, M.P., by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Arthur Strangways of London. m. (1) c.1671, Sarah, da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Foote, 1st Bt., wid. of Sir John Lewis, 1st Bt., of Ledston, Yorks, s.p.; (2) Jane Yard, wid., da. of Henry Weston of Oakham, Surr. and sis. of John Weston, M.P., s.p.

Offices Held

Commr. of victualling 1706-11, 1714-d.; outranger of Windsor forest 1717-d.

Biography

A younger brother, with a scanty provision, bred to no business, having soon left that he was designed for, with very moderate abilities of any kind,

Denzil Onslow, according to his great-nephew, the Speaker,

came to make as reputable a figure and to be in as much consideration in his country as any gentleman in it.

He achieved this by marrying a wealthy widow, with whose money he purchased the estate of Pyrford, where ‘he lived in a fashion equal almost to any man in the county’. Though ‘above forty years with very little interruptions a Member of the House of Commons’, he is said by the Speaker to have known ‘no more of the business there than one who had been of the standing of a session’. Deprived of his office by the Tory Government in 1711, he was reinstated by the Whigs in 1714, securing a second office from the 2nd Lord Onslow in 1717 so that he might vacate his seat at Guildford in order to contest the county, ‘for the sake of keeping up the interest of the family’.1 He died 27 June 1721, leaving his property to the children of his nephew, the 1st Lord Onslow, whose peerage, failing male issue, had been entailed on him by a special remainder.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

  • 1. HMC 14th Rep. IX, 495-6, 503.