LONG, Sir Walter, 2nd Bt. (c.1626-1710), of Whaddon, nr. Melksham, Wilts. and James Street, Covent Garden, Westminster.

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

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1679

Family and Education

b. c.1626, 1st s. of Sir Walter Long, 1st Bt., of Whaddon by 1st w. Mary, da. and coh. of Robert Cox, Grocer, of London. educ. Magdalen Hall, Oxf. matric. 12 June 1640, aged 14; L. Inn 1644. unm. suc. fa. 27 Nov. 1672.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Wilts. Aug. 1660-1, 1663-80, 1689-90, j.p. 1671-80, 1689-d., commr. for recusants 1675; freeman, Bath 1679.2

Biography

Long’s ancestors had held the manor of Whaddon, nine miles from Bath, since 1555. They were apparently not of the same stock as the older Draycot family. One of them sat for Westbury in 1571, but it was Long’s father who achieved prominence in Opposition in the early Parliaments of Charles I. The chief Presbyterian whip in the Long Parliament, he was expelled by the army in 1647, but resumed his seat on the return of the secluded Members, and received a baronetcy at the Restoration.3

Long was returned for Bath by the Presbyterian faction at the second general election of 1679 with a majority of one over Sir William Bassett on the third poll. He was removed from the commission of the peace as an exclusionist, but in the second Exclusion Parliament he was named only to the committee of elections and privileges. He was defeated by Bassett at the general election of 1681, and in 1689 received only three votes. He died on 21 May 1710, aged 84, and was buried at Whaddon. There was no heir to the baronetcy, but his estate, valued at £4,000 p.a., was inherited by a nephew, the younger son of Sir Philip Parker, who assumed the name of Long.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Irene Cassidy

Notes

  • 1. Wilts. N. and Q. ii. 28; PCC 109 Dale; Wilts. Inquisitions (Index Lib. xxiii), 229; St. Mary Woolchurch Haw Reg. 323; E134/29 Chas. II/Easter 31/8.
  • 2. Bath council bk. 2, p. 750.
  • 3. VCH Wilts. vii. 172; Wilts. Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. cv), 116; Keeler, Long Parl. 256-7; D. Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 69, 82, 210.
  • 4. Bath council bk. 2, p. 812; 3, p. 86; CSP Dom. Jan.-June 1683, p. 60; Misc. Gen. et Her. (ser. 2), ii. 326; Luttrell, vi. 585.