Family and Education

bap. 14 July 1658, 1st s. of Alan or Allen Carr of Chichester by Anne, da. of William Elson of Barnham and Oving, Suss., sis. of William Elson I*. unm.  suc. fa. 1668.1

Offices Held

Alderman, Chichester by 1698, mayor 1708–9.2

Biography

Carr’s grandfather Thomas, the younger son of a Yorkshire squire, had been installed as parish incumbent of Oving in 1623 and had held on to his living throughout the Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration, until his death in 1663. Carr’s father bequeathed his son £1,000 and some property in Petersfield on his death in 1668. The ten-year-old Thomas may then have come under the influence of his mother’s family, the Elsons, for his mature politics reflected their Tory leanings. Indeed, he was allegedly a non-juror, refused the Association at first in 1696 and was ordered to be arrested, though he presumably subscribed later since he retained his place as captain of foot in the Sussex militia. He was returned to Parliament for Chichester in 1708 on the corporation interest and presumably with the support of the Elsons, and was classed as a Tory in a list of Parliament of early 1708. His election was reckoned a ‘loss’ by Lord Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*). It seems more than a little surprising, therefore, to find him blacklisted in 1710 as one who had voted for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. Carr seems to have been left off the commission of the peace for Sussex in 1714. The following year he was nominated as a trustee in the will of the Catholic Anthony Kemp of Slindon. Carr was buried on 23 June 1721.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. lxxxix), 23; Suss. Arch. Colls. xxxiv. 189–90; Elwes and Robinson, Castles and Mansions of Western Suss. 161.
• 2. Centre Kentish Stud. U269/O56, ‘A short acct. of the behaviour of the corporation of Chichester’, [n.d.]; A. Hay, Hist. Chichester, 571.
• 3. Info. from Dr P. J. Le Fevre; Suss. Arch. Colls. 206; U269/O56, ‘A short acct.’; PC 2/76, f. 192; Prob. 11/548/66 (ex inf. Dr Le Fevre).