LAROCHE, John (c.1700-52), of Pall Mall, and Englefield Green, Surr.

Laroche, a merchant of Huguenot extraction, seems to have begun life as steward of the Robartes family,MacLean, Trigg Minor, i. 153 n. who had the chief interest at Bodmin. Henry Robartes, 3rd Earl of Radnor, left him £1,000 in his will in 1741, and John Robartes, 4th Earl of Radnor, left his Cornish estates to Laroche’s children in 1757.PCC 49 Spurway; PCC 231 Hering. After standing unsuccessfully for Bodmin in June 1725 he was returned for it as a Whig in 1727, subsequently building up a strong interest of his own in the corporation. His only recorded speeches were made on 15 April 1736 in favour of a bill designed to check the alienation of lands to charities and on 4 Feb. 1740 and 21 Jan 1741 in defence of the board of Georgia trustees, of whom he was an original member.Harley Diary, 15 Apr. 1736; HMC Egmont Diary, iii. 108, 180. He voted against the Hessians in 1730 but otherwise regularly voted with the Administration till the critical divisions before the fall of Walpole, when he was absent, owing to illness, from those on the chairman of the elections committee and on the Westminster election petition in December 1741.Coxe, Walpole, iii. 583, 586. After Walpole’s fall he supported successive Administrations till his death, 20 Apr. 1752.