PYTTS (PITTS), Edward (c.1606-72), of Kyre Park, Worcs.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1606, 1st s. of Sir James Pytts of Kyre Park by Mary, da. of Sir Arthur Heveningham of Ketteringham, Norf. m. Elizabeth, da. of Sir Samuel Sandys of Ombersley, Worcs., 2s. 2da. suc. fa. 1640.1

Offices Held

Commr. of array, Worcs. 1642; j.p. Worcs. 1643-6, 1648-d., Herefs. July 1660-d.; commr. for assessment, Worcs. 1643, 1648-52, 1657, Jan. 1660-d., sequestrations 1643, levying of money 1643, militia 1648, Mar. 1660, sheriff 1661-2, receiver of assessments 1661-3, member, council in the marches of Wales 1661-d.2

Biography

Pytts’s ancestors were substantial yeomen on the western confines of Worcestershire by the 15th century. They moved into the ranks of the gentry, thanks to the lucrative legal office of filazer of the common pleas, in Elizabethan times, acquiring Kyre Park in 1576 and the manor of Ivington, two miles south of Leominster, in 1590. Although named as a commissioner of array, Pytts probably had parliamentarian sympathies in the Civil War; but during the royalist domination of Worcestershire he lay low, giving some colour to charges of delinquency, which were not upheld. The first of his family to enter Parliament, in 1654 he was considered an opponent of Cromwell, but two years later he was one of those who voted to offer him the crown.3

Pytts was returned for Leominster at the general election of 1660. Lord Wharton assigned him to the management of Edward Harley, which suggests that he was opposed to the Anglican Church. He seems to have been totally inactive in the Convention, though the possibility of confusion in the Journals with George Pitt cannot be ruled out, but he probably voted with the Opposition. He is not known to have stood again, and died on 3 Nov. 1672, aged 66.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Edward Rowlands

Notes

  • 1. Kyre Park Charters, (Worcs. Rec. Soc.), pp. xi-xii.
  • 2. Trans. Woolhope Field Club, xxxiv. 292; Cal. Treas. Bks. i. 379; PC2/55, f. 462.
  • 3. Kyre Park Charters , pp. vii-xi, 22-23, 124; Cal. Comm. Comp. 3027; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money , 995; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 297.
  • 4. Kyre Park Charters, pp. vii-xi, 22-23, 124; Cal. Comm. Comp. 3027; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 995; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 297.