Family and Education

b. ?1667, o. s. of Arthur Fleetwood of Lichfield, Staffs. and St. Margaret’s, Westminster, sec. to the Earl of Danby, by Mary, da. and coh. of Sir Henry Archbold of Abbots Bromley and Lichfield, Staffs.1; cos. of Sir Christopher Musgrave. educ. B.N.C. Oxf. 25 Oct. 1683, aged 16. m. (settlement 12 Feb. 1714) Sarah, da. of Roger Sudell of Preston, Lancs., s.p. suc. fa. 1677; his distant cos. Edward Fleetwood, M.P. for Preston 1660 and 1685, in Penwortham estates 1704.

Offices Held

Ensign 7 Ft. 1685, 2nd lt. 1687, lt. 1688.

Biography

Fleetwood served in the regiment of his maternal uncle, Lord Dartmouth, till the Revolution, when Dartmouth was deprived of all his offices. In 1704 he succeeded to an estate near Preston, which he represented as a Tory from 1708. A member of the Preston Jacobite club,2 he was attached to the Duke of Hamilton, the head of the Lancashire Jacobites under Anne.3 After George I’s accession his only recorded vote was against the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts in 1719. Retiring in 1722 he gave up his interest at Preston to Thomas Hesketh.4 He died 22 May 1746. In 1747 a private Act of Parliament was passed, providing for the sale of his estates to discharge debts totalling £16,000.5

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. N. & Q. (ser. 10), vii. 303.
• 2. H. W. Clemesha, Hist. Preston, 199.
• 3. Sir R. Bradshaigh to Geo. Kenyon, 18 Nov. 1712, HMC 14th Rep. IV, 449.
• 4. E. Hamilton to Sunderland, undated, Sunderland (Blenheim) mss.
• 5. VCH Lancs. vi. 59.