BOONE, Charles (1652-89), of Mount Boone, Devon.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

14 Jan. - 12 Aug. 1689

Family and Education

bap. 18 Apr. 1652, 3rd s. of Thomas Boone of Mount Boone by Dorothy, da. of John Upton of Lupton. unm. suc. bro. John 1682/3.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Devon 1689-d., j.p. 1689-d.

Biography

Boone’s father, an uncannily successful merchant, bought his estate about 1630, with typical flamboyance renaming it Mount Boone. In spite of its modest elevation the site of his residence looms over Dartmouth, which he represented in the Long Parliament from 1646 to 1653, and again in 1654 and 1659. During the Protectorate he took part in diplomatic missions to the Czar and the King of Sweden. His interest in the borough remained sufficiently considerable after the Restoration for Joseph Williamson to canvass him in 1667. He gave sympathy and encouragement to at least one deprived minister, but after his death in 1678 his ghost was alleged to haunt the beach below his house, plaiting ropes of sand for the Devil.2

Boone, as a younger son, started life as a merchant, being left £1,500 by his father as an addition to his capital. Both his elder brothers died unmarried, one of them leaving a legacy to John Upton ‘desiring that love and friendship may be continued between the families of Lupton and Mount Boone’, and it was doubtless as Upton’s successor that Boone opposed the court candidates at Dartmouth in 1685; he petitioned against the return, but without result. As the brother-in-law of Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Bt., he was regarded with suspicion by his loyalist neighbours during Monmouth’s invasion, when it was thought that his racing yacht might be used by the rebels. His rent-roll was minimal, but he was alleged to enjoy an income of nearly £2,000 p.a. in money. Although probably a nonconformist, he does not seem to have been approached by James II’s regulators.3

Returned for Dartmouth in 1689, Boone was unable to take his seat till June owing to ill-health. He made no speeches and sat on no committees, dying on 12 Aug. With his death the Devon branch of the Boone family became extinct.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes

  • 1. Drake, Hundred of Blackheath, 222; Trans. Devon Assoc. xliii. 366; Western Antiquary, i. 82; PCC 147 Drax.
  • 2. Lady Eliott-Drake, Fam. and Heirs of Drake, ii. 30; PCC 71 Bath; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 445; P. Russell, Dartmouth, 130; A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 58.
  • 3. CJ, ix. 721; Add. 41803, f. 322.
  • 4. CJ, x. 143, 192, 273.