CHETWYND, John (c.1643-1702), of Rudge, Standon, Staffs.

Chetwynd’s father played no known part in the Civil War. He himself purchased a commission in the Irish army, though he never set foot in the country. Although only distantly related to Walter Chetwynd, he apparently stood next in the entail of the Ingestre estate, and was made a local tax official in 1677 in order to secure his cousin’s support for the Danby administration. In the Convention he replaced him as Member for Stafford. Presumably a Tory, he was blacklisted by Anthony Rowe among those who voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant. An inactive Member, his 11 committees included those to consider the bill restoring corporations (2 May) and to inquire into the delay in relieving Londonderry (1 June) and the sale of offices (19 June). After the recess he was among those entrusted with the petition from the widow of Sir Thomas Armstrong, his cousin’s fellow-Member in the first Exclusion Parliament. Re-elected in 1690, his later political career was erratic. ‘An immoderate taker of snuff’, he sneezed himself to death on 9 Dec. 1702. His son succeeded him as Member for Stafford; an equally versatile politician, he represented the borough with two short intervals until his death in 1734, acquiring an Irish peerage after the Hanoverian succession.4Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 168-9.