Clement Kent, MP

Family and Education

b. ?1682, 1st s. of Clement Kent of Goring, Oxon. by Sarah, da. of Sebastian Lyford of Crookham and Reading. educ. Balliol, Oxf. 12 June 1700, aged 17; I. Temple 1700. m. 8 Jan. 1704, Barsheba Marsh of Stepney, Mdx., 2s. suc. fa. 1701; maternal gd.-fa. at Crookham 1703.

Offices Held

Capt.-lt. Ld. Henry Scott’s Ft. 1704; capt. Sir Daniel Carroll’s Drags. 1711-12; sheriff, Berks. 1714-15; capt. 11 Drags. 1726-c.1730.

Biography

Kent came from a family established at Reading since the early years of the 15th century, his grandfather having been a clothier there. In 1700 he was described by Simon Harcourt I* as ‘one of Lord Wharton’s [Hon. Thomas*] creatures and new justices’. Commissioned in a regiment raised in Ireland in 1704, he was soon soliciting promotion and in February 1705 his colonel recommended him to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormond, for a captaincy, describing him as ‘a gentleman of an estate’. Returned at Wallingford, where he owned some property, he was classed as a ‘Churchman’ in a list of the 1705 Parliament, but his election was reckoned a ‘gain’ by Lord Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*). Kent voted on 25 Oct. 1705 for the Court candidate as Speaker and on 18 Feb. 1706 for the Court side in the proceedings on the regency bill. On 21 Feb. he brought in a complaint of breach of privilege against one of the defeated Tory candidates at Wallingford, Thomas Renda*, in a case arising from that election. He did not, however, stand at the next election. Having at last obtained a captain’s commission in 1711, he served with his new regiment in Portugal before being placed on half-pay when it was disbanded the following year. After sitting as a Tory in the 1722 Parliament, he was given a new regimental commission in 1726, only to be returned to the half-pay list within four years. Kent died on 25 Dec. 1746 and was buried at Goring.

• Sources
  • http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/ke...
  • http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/ke...