GIFFORD, Benjamin (c.1688-1713), of Beaminster, Dorset, and Boreham, nr. Westbury, Wilts.

Constituency	Dates
Dorchester	1710 – 13 June 1713

Family and Education

b. c. 1688, 1st s. of William Gifford of Beaminster and Horsington, Som., by Mary, da. and h. of John Hoskins of Beaminster; bro. of John Hoskins Gifford*. educ. Trinity, Oxf. matric. 30 Apr. 1706, aged 17. unm. suc. fa. 1693.1 Collinson, Som. ii. 373; Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 123.

Address

Main residences: Beaminster, Dorset; Boreham, nr. Westbury, Wilts.

biography text

Gifford, whose family had held lands for 200 years at Boreham in Wiltshire, inherited estates in that county as well as in Dorset and Somerset. Classed as a Tory in the ‘Hanover list’ of 1710, having been returned for Dorchester after a contest, he was included in the list of ‘worthy patriots’ who in the first session of this Parliament detected the mismanagements of the previous administration. He was also a member of the October Club. A victim of Lord Cowper’s (William*) purge of Wiltshire j.p.s, Gifford was restored by Lord Harcourt (Simon I*) in June 1712. He died on 13 June 1713, aged 25, and was buried at Horsington in Somerset.2 L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 215; Hoare, Wilts. Warminster, 7.

Author

P.W.

Volume

Commons 1690-1715

Notes

1. Collinson, Som. ii. 373; Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 123.
2. L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 215; Hoare, Wilts. Warminster, 7.