ST. AMAND, James (c.1643-1728), of Russell 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

Family and Education

b. c.1643, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John St. Amand of Greenwich, Kent by w. Anne. m. by 1686, Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Juxon, 1st Bt., of Auburn, Wilts., 2s. (1 d.v.p.) 1da. suc. fa. 1664.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Apothecaries’ Co. c.1667, asst. 1684-d., master 1687-8; alderman, London 1687-Oct. 1688.2

Apothecary to the King 1685-Dec. 1688.3

Biography

St. Amand’s father, for all his baronial surname, came from an obscure Nottinghamshire family. As secretary to Lord Keeper Williams, he sat for Stamford in 1624-5, and later joined the syndicate that farmed the petty customs. Despite strong Calvinist views, he was apparently a Royalist in the Civil War, for when he petitioned for a grant of Steyning rectory after the Restoration Charles II expressed a sense of his great loyalty and sufferings. He seems to have had little to leave his children besides arrears of an unpaid annuity in Yorkshire and his claims on Charles I’s custom farmers.4

St. Amand himself was apprenticed to the Duke of York’s apothecary, brother to Thomas Gape, and took over his master’s house and practice on his death in 1675. On the Duke’s succession to the throne he was appointed his first apothecary at a salary of £500 p.a., and elected for St. Ives on the court interest. An inactive Member, he was appointed only to the committees on the bills for regulating hackney coaches and for the general naturalization of Huguenot refugees. His wife was the great-niece of Archbishop Juxon, and when he was installed as alderman of London in 1687 he insisted on taking the ‘corporation oath and test’ as an Anglican. He wrote a detailed medical account of the birth of the Prince of Wales, and was recommended by Sunderland for re-election in 1688. At the Revolution he was credited with a holding of £1,000 stock in the East India Company.5

Though St. Amand remained an active Member of his company, representing them in negotiations with the Royal College of Physicians after the Revolution, he was a non-juror and a Jacobite. He was associated with the conspirator John Ashton, who was executed in 1691, and three years later the arrest of ‘Monsieur St. Amand’ for treason was announced; but he was released on bail and never brought to trial. He later became one of the chief advisers at the Old Pretender’s court, and it was probably his son, the antiquary, who stood for Steyning in 1710. He died on 4 Oct. 1728 and was buried at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. From his will his income may be estimated at £900 p.a., most of which went to his married daughter. He was the last member of the family to sit in Parliament.6

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Eveline Cruickshanks / John. P. Ferris

Notes

  • 1. H. H. Drake, Hundred of Blackheath , 100; St. Paul Covent Garden (Harl. Soc. Reg. xxxiii), 70, 74, 130; PCC 53 Hyde, 364 Brook; J. Comber, Suss. Genealogies Horsham, 195.
  • 2. J. R. Woodhead, Rulers of London, 155; SP44/335/194.
  • 3. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 356.
  • 4. Reg. Roff. 957; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 67; 1661-2, p. 348; Foedera, viii. pt. 4, p. 78; Cal. Treas. Bks. i. 153.
  • 5. Woodhead, 155; St. Paul Covent Garden (Harl. Soc. Reg. xxxvi), 70; Verney Mems. ii. 220; HMC 7th Rep. 460; Survey of London xxxvi. 97; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 356; 1687-9, p. 276; R. Morrice, Entering Bk. 2, p. 190; HMC Portland, ii. 53; Add. 32096, ff. 39-46; 22185, f. 14.
  • 6. C. R. B. Barrett, Hist. Soc. Apothecaries, 119; C. Wall, Hist. Soc. Apothecaries, 373; Cal. Treas. Bks. x. 94; Luttrell, iii. 374, 377; information from Daniel Szechi; DNB; Woodhead, 155.