Rawlin Mallock, MP

Family and Education b. c.1649, o.s. of Roger Mallock of Exeter and Cockington by Rose, da, and coh. of Sir Jerome Alexander, j.c.p. [I] of Dublin. educ.Wadham, Oxf. matric. 3 May 1667, aged 17. m. (1) 26 June 1669, his step-sis., Susannah, da. of Thomas Gorges of Batcombe, Som., 1da.; (2) 1676, Elizabeth, da. and coh. of John Collins of Chute Lodge, Hants, 1s. suc. fa. 1657.1

Offices Held

J.p. Devon 1672-July 1688, Oct. 1688-d., commr. for assessment 1677-80, 1689-90; freeman, Totnes to 1684.2

Biography Mallock’s family originated on the Dorset-Devon borders; one of them represented Lyme Regis in four Parliaments in Tudor times. Mallock’s grandfather established himself as a merchant in Exeter; a captain in the city train-bands, he took the Royalist side in the Civil War and was fined £1,629. The family fortunes were far from ruined, however, since only four years later Mallock’s father who had married the daughter of a shady Jewish lawyer, bought Cockington. On his early death, Mallock became the ward of Simon Snow, the secluded Member for Exeter in the Long Parliament.3

Mallock was returned for Ashburton, about nine miles from his residence, on a by-election in 1677 with the support of the Church interest. On 13 May 1678 he was named to the committee of elections and privileges, to which his opponent’s petition was presented at the end of the month. Described as a very loyal subject at his election, Mallock was marked ‘vile’ by Shaftesbury, and appeared on Danby’s list of court supporters in 1678. He sat on only one other committee in the Cavalier Parliament, for a Cornish navigation bill, and on 11 Dec. was found to have departed the House without leave, and ordered to be sent for in custody.4

Mallock followed the standard negative replies given by Sir Edward Seymour to the questions on the repeal of the Test Acts and Penal Laws, and was removed from the commission of the peace. He was elected for Totnes, probably on the Seymour interest, at the general election of 1689. According to Anthony Rowe he voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant. But he was otherwise totally inactive in the Convention, though in both sessions he was careful to seek the House’s permission before leaving town. Though the Revolution settlement may have been little to his liking, and he is not known to have stood again, he was patriotic enough to send a warning to the Government in 1690 of the arrival of the French fleet in Torbay. He died in the following year and was buried at Cockington on 11 Apr. 1691. His son ran into financial difficulties, and the parliamentary record of the Mallock family was not resumed until 1886.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690 Author: John. P. Ferris Notes 1. Vivian, Vis. Devon, 547. 2. Trans. Devon Assoc. viii. 367. 3. Ibid. lxi. 211; xcii. 279-92; C. Rogers, Mems. of the House of Alexander, ii. 160-4. 4. Trans. Devon Assoc. xcviii. 214; CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 17. 5. Trans. Devon Assoc. xcviii. 217; Exeter City Lib. 48/13/8/8/5 (letter of Edward Seymour, 21 Sept. 1686); CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 77; Cal. Treas. Bks. xiv. 173.