ELIOTT, John (c.1633-70), of Winterbourne Earls, Wilts.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

9 May 1660

Family and Education

b. c.1633, 1st s. of Nicholas Elliott of Salisbury by Emily, da. of John Nicholas of Winterbourne Earls. educ. Winchester 1645; New Coll. Oxf. 1651, BCL 1658, DCL 1665; advocate, Doctors’ Commons 1668. unm.

Offices Held

Fellow of New Coll. 1653-65; commr. for assessment, Wilts. Aug. 1660-d.; chancellor, Salisbury dioc. 1665-d.

Biography

Elliott’s family had held municipal office in Salisbury since Elizabethan times, and his mother was the sister of Sir Edward Nicholas. His father, mayor in 1633-4, seems to have avoided commitment in the Civil War; by 1647 he had become one of the principal burgage-holders in Downton. Elliott was an Anglican, but sufficiently flexible to satisfy the visitors at Oxford during the Commonwealth, though he later claimed that he had ‘always in these times of delinquency and rebellion lived under a cloud, and hath been all along looked on as a disaffected person ... in regard of his own and his relations’ affections to your Majesty’. Standing in conjunction with his schoolfellow Giles Eyre, Elliott was seated in the Convention after a double return had been decided in their favour. As nephew to the senior secretary of state, Elliott may have been moderately active, with 13 committees, though there is the possibility of confusion with John Eliot. He probably served on the committee for the attainder bill, and was added to the revenue committee on 27 Nov. 1660. At the next general election Elliott was willing to stand down in favour of Edward Nicholas, but, finding that the borough would not accept a ‘stranger’, he offered himself for re-election with his uncle’s support. Again there was a double return, but this time Elliott and Eyre did not press their petition after the charge of fraudulent creation of freeholds had been made on the floor of the House. Elliott died on 10 Aug. 1670, and was buried at Winterbourne Earls. His brother inherited his ‘mean and poor estate’; but no other member of the family entered Parliament.

Hoare, Wilts. Alderbury, 78, 101, Downton, 19; Eg. 2538, f. 252; Eg. 2539, f. 5; D. Nicholas, Mr Sec. Nicholas, 81; Wilts. Inquisitions (Index Lib. xxiii), 366-7; SP29/6/89; Wilts. RO, Radnor mss 337, 1025; Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 10, f. 72, Nicholas to Thynne, 7 Mar. 1661.

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: M. W. Helms

Notes