Family and Education

b. 28 Jan. 1690, 1st s. of John Kynaston* by his 1st w.  educ. I. Temple 1720. unm.  suc. fa. 1733.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Shrewsbury 1714; mayor, Oswestry 1739–d.2

Biography

A zealous Tory, and in later life a Jacobite, Kynaston first came to prominence in 1710, when he was one of the leading figures in the procession which accompanied Dr Sacheverell in triumph into Shrewsbury. At about the same time he came into possession of various estates in Shropshire, which he had inherited through his mother. In the election of 1713 he stood at Shrewsbury, supported by his father, who headed the powerful Tory interest in the borough. Kynaston and Edward Cressett were opposed by a Whig, Thomas Jones, and after a close contest Cressett and Jones were returned. Kynaston thereupon petitioned against Jones’s return and on 14 Mar. 1714 the Commons upheld the petition, and he took his seat in the House. Kynaston is not recorded as having spoken in this Parliament, and was not an active Member. He was classed as a Tory in the Worsley list and in two lists of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments.3

In September 1715 Kynaston was one of six MPs ordered to be arrested on a charge of having been involved in a plot in connexion with the Jacobite invasion attempt. He evaded capture for some months, and eventually surrendered himself in January 1716, being released soon afterwards. A consistent opponent of the Whig ministries of the first two Georges, he took part in Jacobite intrigues, and after his death on 17 June 1740 his friend Thomas Carte wrote that the Pretender ‘hath had a great loss in the death of Corbet Kynaston, who was a man of the honestest principles in nature and would have ventured his life and fortune for him in any circumstances whatever’.4

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. Mont. Colls. xv. 7.
• 2. Shrewsbury Burgess Roll ed. Forrest, 178; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. ser. 1, vii. 70–71.
• 3. Boyer, Anne Annals, ix. 203; A. E. C[orbet], Fam. Corbet, ii. 357; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. ser. 2, vi. 217; ser. 4, viii. 261.
• 4. A Full and Authentick Narrative of the Intended Horrid Conspiracy and Invasion, 21; RA, Stuart mss 225/112.