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ALLESTRY, William (c.1642-c.1700), of Walton-on-Trent, Derbys.
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Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b.c.1642, 1st s. of Roger Allestry. educ. Queen’s, Oxf. 1659; G. Inn 1659. m. (1) 14 Oct. 1668, aged 26, Frances (with £2,200), da. of John Lorymer, Apothecary, of Bucklersbury, London, s.p.; (2) settlement 11 Oct. 1676 (with £2,000), Alice (d.c.1694), da. of William Booth of Witton, Warws., and h. to her bro. William, 3s. (2 d.v.p.). suc. fa. 1665.1
Offices Held
Commr. for assessment, Derbys. 1673-80, 1689-d.; j.p. Derbys. by 1680-Mar 1688, Derbys. and Mdx. 1689-92; sheriff, Derbys. 1682-3.2
Biography
Allestry inherited an estate yielding only £372 p.a. at the most generous computation, but both his wives had money, and the second on her brother’s death became worth ten or twelve thousand pounds. He was clearly a Tory, retaining local office during the exclusion crisis, though it was only with the utmost reluctance that he accepted the gentry nomination for Derby at the general election of 1685. He was returned unopposed, but played no ascertainable part in James II’s Parliament. He refused to commit himself on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, and was dismissed from local office. He stood again for Derby at the general election of 1690, and was wrongly reported to have been returned. Soon afterwards he sold his land in Derbyshire and moved to Middlesex, but he was removed with several others from the commission of the peace in 1692 on the King’s orders. His son deposed on 23 Oct. 1702 that he had died about two years since ‘in great perplexity and trouble by reason of his debts’. He was the last of the family to sit in Parliament.3
