FOWNES, John (c.1661-1731), of Kittery Court, Devon

Fownes, who was descended from a line of aldermen and mayors of Plymouth, moved after his marriage to Kittery Court, a fine house in the vicinity of Dartmouth, and in 1701 was admitted a freeman of that borough (an ‘honorary not a trading freeman’) as part of a mass creation of freemen to build up a rival interest in Dartmouth to that of the Herne family. But it was not until a by-election in 1714 that he stood for Parliament there, as a High Tory, in opposition to the Hanoverian Tory Frederick Herne*, whom he defeated. His son John succeeded him in the seat in 1715, keeping out on that occasion Frederick’s brother Nathaniel Herne*. Fownes himself died on 4 Oct. 1731 and was buried at Brixham. Ibid.; Vivian, 373.