FANSHAWE, Hon. Henry (1634-85), of Dengie Hall, Essex and King Street, Westminster.

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

Constituency

Dates

19 May - Aug. 1685

Family and Education

bap. 8 June 1634, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Fanshawe I by his 2nd w.; bro. of Charles Fanshawe and Thomas Fanshawe. educ. M. Temple 1657. unm.1

Offices Held

Registrar to King’s remembrancer in the Exchequer by 1667-d.; jt. surveyor and receiver of greenwax fines 1677-9; receiver of prize arrears 1677-?79, wine licence arrears 1679; commr. for excise appeals 1679-d.2

Freeman, Grimsby 1672; commr. for assessment, Westminster 1677-9; capital burgess, Penryn Mar. 1685.3

Biography

On his mother’s death in 1668, Fanshawe inherited a third share in Dengie Hall, an estate acquired by his great-grandfather in 1561, and £1,000 in money. But his chief source of income was his office in the Exchequer. In 1669 he was granted £20 p.a. ‘for his services in keeping, sorting and ordering the hearth-rolls’, and five years later was given a royal bounty of £300 for ‘his extraordinary services in recovering the extracts of the late subsidy’. He was mentioned as possible candidate for Grimsby in 1672 and Okehampton in 1676, and in the following year he received £250 on the secret service account, probably to enable him to contest the Isle of Wight borough of Newtown. But he was defeated on the poll and petitioned without result. He was a henchman of Danby, whom he visited in the Tower during the exclusion crisis, and Charles II declared that he had ‘a very particular favour’ for Fanshawe, being ‘very well satisfied of his integrity and intelligence’.4

Fanshawe was nominated to the Penryn corporation in the new charter of 1685, and elected to James II’s Parliament a couple of months later. An active Member, he was appointed to the committee of elections and privileges, and to 14 others, including those to consider the bills for the better recovery of tithe, the establishment of a land registry, and the general naturalization of Huguenot refugees. He also helped to estimate the yield of the proposed tax on new buildings. He died during the recess and was buried at Ware on 31 Aug.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Vis. England and Wales Notes ed. Crisp. vi. 159.
  • 2. Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 215, 221; iv. 831; v. 795, 993, 1105, 1263, 1304; vi. 46, 121; vii. 365; Northants. RO, FH1670.
  • 3. HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 285; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 74.
  • 4. Fanshawe Mems. pp. xii, 304; H. C. Fanshawe, Fanshawe Fam. 121, 125; Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 215; iv. 336, 529, 831-2; v. 351, 365, 1328, 1330; CSP Dom. 1672, p. 555; Eg. 3330, f. 39; CJ, ix. 391; Add. 29560, f. 13.
  • 5. Northants. RO, FH647, 3577.