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

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.