PHILIPS, Richard (c.1640-1720), of Ipswich and Edwardstone, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

10 Nov. 1696 - 1700
Dec. 1701 - 1702

Family and Education

b. c.1640, prob. 1st s. of Richard Philips of Halesworth, Suff. by his w. Lettice.  m. (1) lic. 16 Sept. 1667, Anne, da. and coh. of Edward Greene (d. by 1667), merchant, of London; (2) lic. 27 Dec. 1674, Frances, da. of Charles Burrough of Ipswich, 1s. 2da.  ?suc. fa. 1669.1

Offices Held

Portman, Ipswich 1685–?d., bailiff 1687–8, 1694–5, 1702–3; sheriff, Suff. 1703–4.2

Biography

Philips described himself, at his first marriage, as a grocer. He survived the changes in the Ipswich corporation in the 1680s, being named a portman in Charles II’s charter in 1685 and again in James II’s charter in September 1688. Returned at a by-election in 1696 in place of Sir John Barker, 4th Bt., he took his seat on 23 Nov. and ‘immediately after’ voted in favour of engrossing the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick†, for which John Grobham Howe* ‘reproached him very roughly, for his being inspired without hearing a word of the debate’. On 19 May 1698 he was granted leave of absence. At the 1698 election he and Samuel Barnardiston* combined ‘to throw out’ the Court Whig Charles Whitaker* and in a list of about September 1698 he was classed as a member of the Country party, being also forecast the following month as likely to oppose a standing army. A stockholder in the Old East India Company, he was defeated at Ipswich in January 1701 by a supporter of the New Company, Joseph Martin*. Regaining his seat in December, he was classed as a Tory by Robert Harley*. He was defeated at the 1702 election and in the same year was fined £100 by the corporation of Ipswich for neglecting his duties as a portman, though this was afterwards remitted for ‘services . . . done the town’, probably while he was bailiff the following year. It appears that he took a leading part at this time in the party ‘disputes’ in the town, presumably on the Tory side and against the faction headed by Charles Whitaker.3

Philips died on 8 Jan. 1720, aged 79. His will mentioned property in Suffolk, including the manors of Nedging, and Brockley and Rede, which he had purchased in 1708, and houses in Ipswich and various country parishes. There were also bequests amounting to over £4,000, and ‘what shipping I shall leave at my death’ to be divided between his son and a grandson.4

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. Suff. RO (Ipswich), IC/AA1/99/93; PCC 15 Shaller; Copinger, Suff. Manors, ii. 17; vii. 16; Mar. Lic. Vicar-Gen. (Harl. Soc. xxxiii), 218.
  • 2. R. Canning, Ipswich Charters (1754), 52, 82; G. R. Clarke, Ipswich, 439; Suckling, Suff. i. p. xlv.
  • 3. Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, i. 73; W. Suss. RO, Shillinglee mss Ac.454/1023, John Hooke to Sir Edward Turnor*, 26 July 1698; EHR, lxxi. 227; Clarke, 71–72.
  • 4. Copinger, vii. 15–16; PCC 15 Shaller.