WROTH, John (c.1626-64), of Blenden Hall, Bexley, Kent

Wroth’s exact date of birth is unknown, but his parents married in February 1625 and he was probably older than his eldest sister, Elizabeth, who was born in May 1627.14Bexley par. reg.; J. Philipott, ‘The vis. of the co. of Kent’, Arch. Cant. x. 332; Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, ii. 87. He could therefore have been aged only about four when he was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1630; his younger brother, Anthony, born in 1628, was admitted at the same time.15I. Temple database; Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, ii. 87. Clearly the brothers cannot be said to have actually attended this inn of court until February 1642 when their uncle, Sir Thomas Wroth*, arranged for them to be granted the use of a set of chambers in Figtree Court.16CITR ii. 292. Their grandfather, Thomas Wroth (d. 1610), had been a bencher of this inn and the family may well have expected them to become professional lawyers. The death of his father in April 1644 made no immediate difference to Wroth’s financial circumstances. The assumption was already that Sir Thomas Wroth would die childless and that therefore John Wroth would eventually inherit his lands in Somerset. With that in mind, the only bequest Sir Peter Wroth left to his eldest son was an allowance of £50 a year which was to commence only once John had reached the age of 24.17PROB11/193/331.

In the late eighteenth century, the Somerset antiquary John Collinson claimed that John Wroth had ‘attended the king in the battle of Cropredy Bridge, and [the] second battle of Newbury, where he was wounded’.18Collinson, Som. iii. 69. This is not impossible. At the time of Cropredy Bridge (29 June 1644) and the second battle of Newbury (27 Oct. 1644), Wroth would perhaps have been aged about 18. But this alleged period of civil war service is otherwise unconfirmed. There is no evidence that he was ever required to compound for such an act of delinquency and such royalism would, at least in theory, have been enough to disqualify him from standing for Parliament in 1659. Additionally, it is just possible that he was the John Wroth appointed by Parliament as a commissioner for the defence of London and for the Middlesex militia in 1644. More secure is his addition to the Somerset assessment commission in 1647.19A. and O. That would make it almost inconceivable that he had been in arms for the king just a few years before. Fighting for the king would, in any case, not have made much sense for Wroth in mid-1644, given that his financial future now largely depended on the favour of his uncle, who would hardly have looked on this with approval. On the other hand, Wroth’s future wife, Lady Harris, was certainly active as a royalist in Shropshire in that period.20CCC 2027. It is particularly telling that, when petitioning Charles II for office for Wroth at the Restoration, she mentioned only her own record of loyalty.21CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 152. The most likely possibility is that Wroth had simply continued his legal studies in London. In 1650 he was called to the bar by the Inner Temple.22CITR ii. 292. He probably married Lady Harris at about the same time, as their eldest son, Thomas, was born at Bexley in October 1651.23Brown, Abstracts of Som. Wills, ii. 87. By 1657, despite their father’s insistence that it pass to Henry, John’s youngest brother, Wroth had gained possession of Blenden Hall.24Hasted, Kent, ii. 170.

Wroth seems to have played no role in public life throughout the 1650s before his election to the 1659 Parliament. That election owed everything to his uncle, Sir Thomas Wroth, and indicates that, as expected, Sir Thomas was now grooming John as his heir. Sir Thomas himself was elected as the other Bridgwater MP. However, nothing however is known of John Wroth’s contribution to this Parliament.

Wroth probably welcomed the Restoration in 1660. He certainly soon benefited from Charles II’s return, for in November of that year he was granted a baronetcy.25CB iii. 131. However, his wife’s petition to Charles II asking that Wroth be appointed as one of the London customs commissioners was unsuccessful.26CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 152. He made no attempt to stand for Parliament again in either 1660 or 1661. He died in 1664 on Sir Thomas Wroth’s estate at North Petherton in Somerset.27Collinson, Som. iii. 69. His heir was his eldest surviving son, Sir John, 2nd bt., with whom this MP has sometimes been conflated. As Sir Thomas Wroth was still alive, the first baronet never did inherit the Wroth estates in Somerset and it was left to the second baronet to succeed to them on Sir Thomas’s death in 1672.28PROB11/339/530. His son, Sir Thomas†, 3rd bt., sat successively for Bridgwater, Somerset and Wells between 1701 and 1715.