Family and Education

b. c.1614, 1st s. of William Flynt of Allesley. educ. G. Inn 1632, called 1637, ancient 1654. m. (1) 15 Oct. 1641, Anne, da. of John Thornton of Brookhall, Northants., s.p.; (2) Martha, da. of Humphrey Greswold of Greet, Worcs., 1s. (posth.). suc. fa. aft. 1632.1

Offices Held

J.p. Warws. July 1660-d., commr. for assessment, Warws. Aug. 1660-9, Coventry 1664-9; bencher, G. Inn 1661, reader 1665; recorder, Tamworth 1664-d.2

Serjeant-at-law 1669-d.

Biography

Flynt, the grandson of a prosperous but illiterate Warwickshire yeoman, became a lawyer, and by 1652 had purchased and enclosed the manor on which he was born. He took no part in the Civil War, but presumably he welcomed the Restoration, when he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak with an income of £700 p.a. He assisted the corporation of Coventry to apply for a new lease of Cheylesmore Park, and was returned for the borough, two miles from his home, at the general election of 1661. But he was not active in the Cavalier Parliament, being nominated to only 24 committees. Half of them were in the first session, including those to bring in the bill against schismatics and to consider the corporations bill. He was made a serjeant-at-law in 1669, when Sir Thomas Osborne included him among the Members who had usually voted for supply. But on 22 Nov. a complaint was made to the House that, as recorder of Tamworth, he was responsible for delaying a by-election by detaining the writ, and he was formally reprimanded. He died at Allesley on 28 Aug. 1670, having ‘lain for some time ill of a feverish distemper, much heightened by violent pains of the stone. ... ’Tis thought the serjeant has left £10,000 debts, which all his estate will scarce satisfy.’ His financial problems were due to his extravagant life-style, notably the new house that he had built in Allesley Park. He was the only member of his family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

• 1. Dugdale, Warws. 131; VCH Northants. Fams. 305.
• 2. C. F. Palmer, Hist. Tamworth, p. xxiv.
• 3. VCH Warws. vi. 4; PCC 97 Savile; Add. 29265, f. 20; T. W. Whitley, Parl. Rep. Coventry, 103; SP29/278/61, 279/75.