Abel Ketelby, a successful Tory lawyer, came of an ancient Shropshire family, seated near Ludlow, of which he became recorder. After the 1715 rebellion he was one of the principal counsel engaged to defend the Jacobites imprisoned at Carlisle, later defending the Jacobite agent John Matthews.1HMC Stuart, iii. 377; Howell’s State Trials, xv. 1364. In 1720 he appeared for the Crown against Lord Coningsby, who afterwards wrote in a pamphlet that Lord Chancellor Macclesfield had irregularly confirmed Ketelby as recorder.2LJ, xxi. 417, 450. Returned for Ludlow on his own and the Tory interest, he defended Layer at his trial for complicity in the Atterbury plot, spoke against the bill of pains and penalties on John Plunket, and moved an amendment to an Act relating to the registration of Papists.3State Trials, xvi. 94-114; Knatchbull Diary, 7 Mar. 1724. As a former agent for South Carolina he served on a committee of the House set up to consider a petition from that colony asking for the removal of rice from the list of ‘enumerated’ commodities, i.e. goods which could not be exported to foreign countries without first being sent to England.4CJ, xx. 62. In 1727 he stood unsuccessfully for Great Bedwyn, drawing a disapproving comment from an old Tory:
The lawyer, although each must plead for their fee, had shewed himself too partial besides; for his name hath been so often in print in relation to trials on the Crown side.5Earl of Ailesbury to Jas. Bruce, 6 Sept. 1727, Savernake mss.
He did not stand again, and died 5 Dec. 1744.