Constituency Dates
Melcombe Regis 1563
St Ives 1586
Family and Education
b. c. 1530. educ. Trinity Hall, Camb. Easter 1544 (‘impubes’); G. Inn 1549, called 1553. m. Elizabeth, da. and h. of Edward Gilbert, alderman of London, 1da.
Offices Held

Reader, G. Inn 1566, 1576, treasurer 1576; j.p.q. Hants 1575.

Address
Main residence: Sherfield-upon-Loddon, Hants.
biography text

Colby was a puritan west-country lawyer ‘of great living’, whose religious views would have made him acceptable to the 2nd Earl of Bedford, who sometimes nominated at Melcombe Regis. As a Hampshire man Colby would be known also to the Marquess of Winchester, who regularly nominated at St. Ives. The only reference found to Colby in the parliamentary journals is to his membership of the succession committee, 31 Oct. 1566. He died 5 Mar. 1588, an inquisition post mortem being taken at Basingstoke 11 Dec. 1588. The heir was his married daughter Dorothy.

Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 149; C142/222/41; Lansd. 683, f. 64; HMC 5th Rep. 582a; D’Ewes, 127; St. Ch. 5/C8/21, C60/14, W15/14; Rev. Eng. Studies, xiii. 134.

Author
P.W.H.
Volume
Commons 1558-1603