Family and Education

b. c.1692, 3rd s. of Sir Jeremy Sambrooke of Bush Hill, nr. Enfield, Mdx., merchant, by Judith, da. of Nicholas Vanacker of Erith, Kent, merchant; bro. of Sir Samuel Sambrooke, 3rd Bt., M.P. educ. St. Catherine’s, Camb. 1709. m. May or June 1717,1 Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Forester, M.P., of Dothill Park, Salop, by Mary, da. of James Cecil, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, s.p.

Offices Held

Biography

John Sambrooke, a Turkey merchant, was returned as a Whig for Wenlock on the interest of his brother-in-law, William Forester. He gave all his known votes against the Government, writing in 1733 that

there never was anyone who acted in Parliament with more disinterested views than I have done, or more for what I thought the Whig interest. It is true I have very often (but far from always) voted against what has been proposed by the ministry, and it is as true when I did so, that I have always thought them in the wrong, and acting contrary to the interest of their country and Whig principles.

This conduct gave him an undeserved Tory reputation, with the result that in 1733 Lord Bradford, the leader of the Shropshire Whigs, openly opposed his re-election, while two extreme Tories, Lord Gower and Watkin Williams Wynn, who owned property in the borough, offered to support him and William Forester. Sambrooke pleaded with Forester to persuade Bradford to withdraw his opposition, claiming that he was a true Whig, that Bradford’s brother-in-law James Cocks and his friend St. John Charlton had the same voting record, and that Orlando Bridgeman, whom Bradford now thought of for Wenlock, had earned the same reputation as himself. He also suggested that Sir Robert Walpole might persuade Bradford to change his mind, but this was impossible, for the quarrel had become so public that Bradford could not retract, nor Walpole ask him to do so.2 Sambrooke did not stand in 1734, dying 19 May, three weeks after the election.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. B. Lawson

Notes

• 1. PCC 143 Ockham.
• 2. Sambrooke to Forester, 16 Sept., 4 Oct. 1733, and Margaret Forester to Forester, 12 Oct. 1733, Willey Park mss.