PUCKERING (formerly NEWTON), Henry (c.1638-64), of The Priory, Warwick.

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

Constituency

Dates

1661 - 21 Mar. 1664

Family and Education

b. c.1638, 1st s. of Sir Henry Puckering. educ. Trinity Coll. Camb. 1654, BA 1657; travelled abroad 1657-8; I. Temple 1658. unm.2

Offices Held

Biography

Puckering was apparently the only son of his parents to survive childhood. While he was still an undergraduate, Thomas Fuller dedicated a section of his Church History of Britain to him, in the hope that he would prove as outstanding a scholar as his two grandfathers. On his return from travel in 1658 his tutor James Duport wrote to his father:

I shall ever count it a great honour to me to have had the tuition and care of so ingenious and hopeful a gentleman, and I hope in time to publish so much to the world. All I can do at present is to remember him in my prayers, beseeching God to bless and preserve him in these dangerous and sickly times.

Duport did not forget his promise, and in 1660 Puckering was one of four pupils to whom he dedicated his Homeri Gnomologia.3

Puckering was returned for Warwick on his father’s interest as the general election of 1661. In the records of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament he cannot always be distinguished from John Newton; but he was probably moderately active, with 45 committees in all. He was certainly appointed to the committees for the bill to restore the bishops to the House of Lords, the corporations bill, the bills to prevent mischiefs from Quakers and tumultuary petitioning, the uniformity bill, and the bill of pains and penalties. He unsuccessfully opposed a five days’ adjournment on 8 Feb. 1662, but he was teller for the majority ten days later when the House refused leave for a general excise on all ale and beer. He had little sympathy for the ministers who refused to conform, acting as teller against a proviso to leave them one-fifth of their stipends. In 1663 he was named to the committee of elections and privileges, but he must have died during the recess, for a writ was ordered for a by-election on the first day of the next session.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. New writ.
  • 2. Add. 34727, f. 98.
  • 3. H. Drake, Hundred of Blackheath, 143; Fuller, Church Hist. (1845), vi. 155; Add. 34727, ff. 98-99; DNB (Duport, James).
  • 4. CJ, viii. 362, 368, 414.