Family and Education

b. 5 Sept. 1619, 1st s. of William Conyers of Walthamstow, serjeant-at-law, by 1st w. Mary, da. and coh. of Sir Francis Harvey, j.c.p., of Cotes, Northants. educ. Merchant Taylors’ 1631; St. John’s, Oxf. 1635; M. Temple 1635, called 1643. m. bef. 1650, Winifred, da. of Sir Gilbert Gerard, 1st Bt., of Flambards, Mdx., 5s. 6da. suc. fa. 1659.1

Offices Held

J.p. Essex by 1653-70, 1673-d., commr. for assessment 1657, Jan. 1660-80, militia Mar. 1660; sewers, Havering and Dagenham levels Sept. 1660, Essex Oct. 1660; bencher, M. Temple 1664, reader 1669, treas. 1672-3; commr. for recusants, Essex 1675; steward, Waltham forest ?1676-d.

Serjeant-at-law 1674-d.

Biography

Conyers’s family left Boltby in Yorkshire to settle at Walthamstow at the beginning of the 17th century. His grandfather was a London merchant, and his father, a wealthy lawyer from the Middle Temple, acted as judge of assize on the Norfolk circuit in 1654.

Conyers, a successful lawyer, was involved in a double return at Maldon in the general election of 1660, but was allowed to take his seat. Lord Wharton marked him as a friend, to be managed by his father-in-law. An inactive Member of the Convention he was appointed to nine committees, of which the most important in the first session was to consider legal forms of the Restoration. After the recess he was among those entrusted with the bill for endowing vicarages out of impropriate rectories and the clause repealing the Statute of Livery. Wharton sent him a copy of the case for modified episcopacy with objections and answers. He never stood again. He was removed from the commission of the peace in 1670 as a sympathizer with dissenters, but he was restored three years later, and retained during the Exclusion crisis. He died on 6 Aug. 1684 and was buried at Walthamstow. His son John contested East Grinstead in 1685 and 1689, and sat for the borough as a Tory almost continuously from 1695 to his death 30 years later.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Gillian Hampson

Notes

• 1. Vis. Essex ed. Howard, 24; Morant, Essex, i. 48-49.
• 2. M. Temple Bench Bk. 210; Essex RO, T 2/26; assize rolls 35/121/2, D/DCV3/9; C191/7/48, 59.