TUFTON, John.

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 - 3 Jan. 1681

Family and Education

Offices Held

Biography

The unique appearance of a Tufton for a West Sussex constituency must be the consequence of the purchase in 1664 of Erringham manor, four miles from Steyning, by Cecil Tufton, brother of the 2nd Earl of Thanet. Some confirmation is provided by the curious error in the Domestic Intelligencer, which gave the name of the junior Member for Steyning in the second Exclusion Parliament as Courtropp, since George Courthope and Cecil Tufton in their younger days had travelled extensively together in the Mediterranean. Tufton was clearly a court supporter, but it has not been possible to identify him further, as no contemporary of this name appears in the family records, except Sir John Tufton, who sat for Maidstone in this Parliament, and the Hon. John Tufton, who succeeded to the peerage on 24 Nov. 1679. ‘Mr Tufton’, however, was named on 17 Dec. 1680 to the committee for disarming Papists and expelling them from the metropolitan area. On 3 Jan. 1681 he was unseated in favour of the exclusionist Philip Gell. The Commons Journals are the only authority for this Member’s Christian name, and he may in fact have been Richard Tufton of Westminster, the unsuccessful Tory candidate for that constituency at the next general election.

H. Cheale, Hist. Shoreham, 56; Dom. Intell. 5 Sept. 1679; Cam. Misc. xi. 109, 114, 117, 126, 132, 134; Le Neve’s Knights (Harl. Soc. viii), 205, 345.

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes