Family and Education

b. c.1625, 1st s. of James Gould I. m. bef. 2 July 1678, Mary, da. and coh. of William Bond of South Bestwall, wid. of John Baskett of Dewlish, 1da. suc. fa. 1676.1

Offices Held

Alderman, Dorchester 1676, mayor 1677-8, 1696-7; commr. for assessment, Dorset 1677-80, 1689-90, sheriff 1687-8, j.p. May 1688-9, 1700-d.; freeman, Poole 1689.2

Commr. for drowned lands 1690.3

Biography

Gould signed the loyal address from Dorset at the Restoration, but otherwise little is known of him before his father’s death, when he succeeded him, both as alderman and Member. In the by-election he was returned unopposed. His only committee was for the prevention of wool exports, but he was noted by Shaftesbury as ‘worthy’. He stood down in favour of his cousin Nicholas Gould in 1679, but was again returned for Dorchester when Sir Francis Holles succeeded to the peerage, and re-elected in 1681. In both the second and third Exclusion Parliaments he was entirely inactive.4

Gould was proposed as court candidate at Poole in 1688, and may have been a Whig collaborator. He failed to win a seat in the Convention, but regained it in 1690. He was buried at St. Peter’s, Dorchester, on 11 Aug. 1707, the last of the Dorset Goulds to sit in Parliament. His daughter and heir married first Charles Churchill^† and then the 2nd Earl of Abingdon (Montagu Venables-Bertie).5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes

• 1. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 602.
• 2. C. H. Mayo, Dorchester Recs. 718; Hutchins, ii. 354; Poole archives B17.
• 3. Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 794.
• 4. Address of Nobility and Gentry of Dorset; CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 575.
• 5. Hutchins, ii. 387; iii. 483.