Robert Croke, MP

Family and Education b. c.1636, 1st s. of Sir Robert Croke (d.1681), clerk of the pipe, of Hampton Poyle, Oxon. by Susanna, da. and coh. of Sir Peter Van Lore, 1st Bt., of Tilehurst, Berks. educ. Queen’s, Oxf. 1653; I. Temple 1655, called 1661. unm.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Bucks. 1661-9, loyal and indigent officers 1662.

Biography Croke’s branch of the family had a strong legal tradition. His grandfather, a younger son, acquired Chequers by marriage. His father was Member for Wendover in both Parliaments of 1640, but was disabled as a royalist commissioner of array, and compounded for £772. Elected for Wendover two-and-a-half miles from his home, in 1661, Croke was an inactive Member, with probably no more than 22 committees. In the opening session of the Cavalier Parliament he was named to the committees for the corporations bill and for considering ways of relieving loyalists. In July 1669 he was granted the reversion to his father’s office, but he did not live to claim it. He died on 30 July 1671, aged 35, and was buried at Ellesborough. His father was the last of this branch of the family, after whom Chequers eventually came to John Thurbarne.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690 Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar Notes 1. Lipscomb, Bucks. ii. 189; A. Croke, Croke Fam. ii. 502. 2. Keeler, Long Parl. 147-8; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1471; CSP Dom. 1668-9, p. 413; Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 249; Lipscomb, ii. 189; VCH Bucks. ii. 336.