Family and Education

b.c. 1655, 2nd s. of Richard Aldworth. m. Anne, 1s. 3da.1

Offices Held

Dep. auditor, Exchequer 1675; auditor-gen. to the Duke of York by 1679, to Mary of Modena 1685-Dec. 1688, to Catherine of Braganza by 1694; auditor and comptroller of hearth-tax 1684-9; auditor, casual revenues under Penal Laws 1689-d., land revenues 1690, Post Office by 1694.2

Bailiff of Barnsley, Yorks. 1672; alderman, Windsor 1685-Oct. 1688; freeman, Reading 1685; j.p. Berks. July 1688-?d.3

Biography

Aldworth was well provided for, presumably under his parents’ marriage settlement. From his maternal grandfather (whose Christian name he bore) he derived Frogmore, ‘substantially rebuilt of brick’ by his father at ‘great charge and cost’ with ‘a handsome prospect’ towards Windsor Park. He was granted certain reversions in the Exchequer in 1674, and began to draw his salary, probably as deputy to his father, on Lady Day 1675. By 1679 he was acting as auditor-general to the Duke of York. He seems to have inherited from his father his house in Westminster as well as an estate in Kent. He was returned as ‘William Aldworth of London’ for Reading at a by-election in 1685 on the recommendation of the 2nd Earl of Clarendon (Henry Hyde), but may never have taken his seat as Parliament was prorogued three days later. His brother was one of the Magdalen dons expelled in 1687. Aldworth continued to manage the Clarendon interest at Reading, but nevertheless he was ordered to stand as court candidate in 1688, and added to the Berkshire commission of the peace. As an official, Aldworth was a glutton for work. He saved the crown £30,000 at the expense of Anthony Rowe and the other farmers of the hearth-tax. Though he remained loyal to Clarendon, he accepted the new regime, and was given several new accounts in compensation for the abolition of the hearth-tax. He continued to build up his estate at Windsor on long leases from the crown, and built lodgings ‘for persons of honour that have dependence on the Court’. He was buried in St. George’s Chapel on 26 Aug. 1700. His son Charles sat for Windsor as a Jacobite under Queen Anne.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Leonard Naylor

Notes

• 1. Misc. Gen. et Her. n.s. iv. 174; Reg. of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, 208.
• 2. CSP Dom. Add. 1660-85, p. 454; HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1 (1881), 294; Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 281, 577, 816; x. 508.
• 3. Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 1091, 1265; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 69; HMC 11th Rep. VII, 199.
• 4. Cal. Treas. Bks. iv. 563, 863; vi. 547; viii. 1686, 1807; ix. 1049, 1250; x. 1260; Hasted, Kent, ix. 607; HMC 11th Rep. VII, 199; Clarendon Corresp. i. 555; ii. 293; CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 276; Reg. of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, 210.