Sir William Fenwick, MP, 2nd Baronet

Biography

• from FENWICK, Sir William, 2nd Bt. (c.1617-76), of Wallington, Northumb.

Fenwick’s ancestors had held lands in Northumberland since early in the 13th century, and first represented the county in 1378. Fenwick’s father, a commissioner of array, sat for Northumberland in the Long Parliament until disabled as a Royalist in 1644; but he was reinstated in 1646 until Pride’s Purge. His half-brother was more consistent in his loyalties, for he fell at Marston Moor at the head of the royalist dragoons. Fenwick himself was returned as a recruiter for the other county seat, but abstained from the House after Pride’s Purge. He regained local office early in the Commonwealth and again represented Northumberland in the Protectorate Parliaments. He did not resume his seat with the secluded Members in 1660, but was re-elected to the Convention, in which he played no known part, and to the Cavalier Parliament. During his absence on leave in 1661, protection was claimed by an Essex resident as Fenwick’s menial servant, but the outcome is not known. His estates were rated in 1663 at £1,500 p.a., but he may have encountered some of the financial difficulties which were to overwhelm his son; in 1670 his cattle were distrained for debt. He was three times added to the committee of elections and privileges, but his only legislative committee was for determining differences about houses destroyed by fire in 1671. At the end of the session he was listed as a government supporter by a hostile critic, and his name appeared again on the working lists. He was dead by 9 July 1676, when canvassing had begun on behalf of his son.4