PURCELL, John (d.1665), of Nantcribba, Mont.

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

Constituency

Dates

31 May 1661 - 9 Oct. 1665

Family and Education

1st s. of Edward Purcell of Nantcribba by Mary, da. of Sir Richard Pryse of Gogerddan Card. educ. Shrewsbury 1636. m. Eleanor, da. of Sir Robert Vaughan of Llwydiarth, Mont. and h. to her bro. Herbert, 2da. suc. fa. aft. 1646.2

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Mont. 1657, Jan. 1660-d., j.p. Mar. 1660-d., dep. lt. c. Aug. 1660-d., commr. for loyal and indigent officers 1662.

Gent. of the privy chamber 1661-d.3

Biography

Purcell came from a cadet line of a gentry family which had held land in Shropshire since at least 1240. Nicholas Purcell, who sat for Shrewsbury in seven Parliaments between 1539 and 1558, acquired ex-monastic property in Montgomeryshire, though the family does not seem to have resided in the country till later in the century. Purcell’s father took no known part in the Civil War, though he was assessed at £1,600 by the committee for the advance of money in 1646. Purcell held only minor local office before the return of the secluded Members. As a cousin of the Herberts of Chirbury, and nephew by marriage to the wealthy and childless Edward Vaughan I, who was in prison in Shrewsbury as a royalist conspirator, Purcell was elected unopposed for the county in 1660. He was an inactive Member of the Convention, in which he was named only to a committee for a local estate bill.4

Purcell again enjoyed the support of the Herberts in 1661, but this time his wife’s uncle was in the field, and he withdrew to the borough seat. He was involved in a double return with John Blayney, but was allowed to sit on the merits of the return, and no further proceedings followed. He was again inactive in the Cavalier Parliament, in which he was appointed to nine committees, including that for settling the sessions in Caernarvonshire. He died in 1665 during the summer recess, leaving a portion of £2,250 to each of his daughters, who married respectively Edward Vaughan III and Sir Godfrey Copley, 2nd Bt. His brother and heir died in 1667 without male issue, and Nantcribba was sold a few years later.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

  • 1. New writ.
  • 2. Mont. Colls. ix. 70-1; J. E. Auden, Shrewsbury Sch. Reg. 4.
  • 3. Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 172.
  • 4. Mont. Colls. ii. 423, 428; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 727.
  • 5. PRO 30/53/7/, f. 77; Mont. Colls. xxvi. 317; xxvii. 203.