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BIGG, John (1652-c.1710), of Graham, Hunts.
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
bap. 5 July 1652, 2nd surv. s. of Walter Bigg, Merchant Taylor, of St. Giles in the Fields, Mdx. and Wallingford, Berks., being 1st s. by 2nd w. Anne, da. and coh. of Francis Thriscrosse, Clothworker of London, wid. of Roger Coleman, Grocer, of London. m. 9 Oct. 1673, Frances, da. of (Sir) Nicholas Pedley of Abbotsleigh, Hunts., 1s. 1da. suc. fa. in Grafham estate 1659.1
Offices Held
Commr. for assessment, Hunts. 1677-80, 1689-90, j.p. 1679-Mar. 1688, Oct. 1688-?d., lt. of militia by 1680-?Apr. 1688, Oct. 1688-at least 1697; sheriff, Cambs. and Hunts. 1682-3, dep. lt. Hunts. 1685-Mar. 1688, Oct. 1688-?d., commr. for inquiry into recusancy fines 1687.2
Biography
Bigg’s father, a major in the parliamentary army and a Presbyterian elder, became sheriff of London in 1653 and master of his Company in the following year. In 1658 he retired to Wallingford, his birthplace, which he represented in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament. During Bigg’s minority his mother added Little Stukeley to the estate which he had inherited from his father. Both manors lay a few miles north-west of Huntingdon. Although Bigg remained on the commission of the peace during the exclusion crisis, he supported his brother-in-law Nicholas Pedley junior against the court candidates in 1685. His appointment to the commission on recusancy fines in 1687 suggests that he was expected to sympathize with the dissenters, but he seems to have been a firm Anglican, possibly under the influence of his wife’s brother-in-law Dr Stillingfleet, and returned a curt negative answer on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws. A militia officer, he was in arms for the Protestant cause in 1688 under the 4th Earl of Manchester, and a month later he was returned to the Convention for Huntingdon. According to Anthony Rowe he voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant; but, apart from a request for leave on 22 Apr. 1689, he does not figure in the Journals and probably never stood again. He presumably died between 26 Oct. 1708, when he was mentioned in his sister’s will, and the general election of 1715, which returned his son John for the county as a Whig.3
Ref Volumes: 1660-1690
Author: E. R. Edwards
Notes
- 1. PCC 151 Harvey, 16 Berkeley, 514 Pell, 117 Eure; St. Giles in the Fields par. reg.; Lansd. 921, ff. 6v, 27v.
- 2. Add. 47189, f. 1; Eg. 1626, f. 21; Cal. Treas. Bks. viii. 1696.
- 3. VCH Hunts. ii. 235; iii. 63, 65; J. Parton, St. Giles in the Fields, 358-9; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 26; Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 116.