Family and Education

b. c.1684, 1st s. of Sir John Trenchard*.  educ. M. Temple 1702; Jesus, Camb. 1705.  m. his cos. Mary (d. 1740), da. and h. of Thomas Trenchard*, 6s. (3 d.v.p.) 5da. (3 d.v.p.).  suc. fa. 1695.1

Offices Held

?Ensign, Earl of Monmouth’s Ft. 1693, Col. Henry Mordaunt’s* Ft. 1695–by 1702.

V.-adm. Poole and Dorset 1716–?d.

Biography

Trenchard’s marriage to the heiress of Wolveton, Dorset, united the seat of the senior branch of the family with the property he had inherited from his father, making Trenchard one of the county’s most substantial landowners. Little is known of his early life, though by 1712 he had become a boon companion of Bishop Burnet’s youngest son, Thomas, and when Thomas Burnet was prosecuted in 1713 for publishing the anti-ministerial pamphlet A Certain Information of a Certain Discourse it was Trenchard who joined Grey Neville* in standing bail for Burnet. Returned for Poole on his own interest in 1713, Trenchard voted against the expulsion of Richard Steele on 18 Mar. 1714, and the Worsley list and two other comparisons of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments classed him as a Whig. He continued to represent Poole after 1715, dying on 31 Mar. 1758.2

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Paula Watson / Richard Harrison

Notes

• 1. Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 326–7.
• 2. Letters of Burnet to Duckett ed. Nichol Smith, 16, 18, 232–3; Boyer, Pol. State, v. 38–39.