BLAGRAVE, Anthony (1680-1744), of Southcot, nr. Reading, Berks.

The Blagraves were an old Reading family, who had acquired their lands under a marriage settlement in the time of Edward VI.1VCH Berks. iii. 219, 365-6. Anthony Blagrave’s father represented the borough in four Parliaments, 1659-60 and 1679-81, and his kinsman Daniel Blagrave, the regicide, was a Member in the Long Parliament. Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, wrote of Reading in 1714: ‘The occasion of the houses being so mean is this. The greatest part of them belong to one Blagrave, and his interest in them being only for lives, there is no likelihood of their being rebuilt as yet’.2Colls. iv. (Oxford Hist. Soc. xxxiv), 358-9. Returned as a Tory for Reading in 1701 and 1708, he was out of Parliament till 1722, when he defeated both sitting Whigs. His name was sent to the Pretender in 1721 as a probable supporter in the event of a rising.3Stuart mss 65/16. He did not stand again, dying in 1744 (buried 19 Dec.).