FARRAR, Robert (d.c.1576), ?of Skellingthorpe, Lincs.

If the marriage suggested for Farrar is correct, this, and his admission as a freeman of Lincoln, together suggest that he may have been one of a family with London connexions known to have been living at Skellingthorpe at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Whatever his family background, Farrar the MP was in the service of the and Earl of Rutland, who was responsible for his return to Parliament for Lincoln. The corporation wrote to the Earl in December 1558, agreeing to return Farrar, together with one of their own men, at the following election. After Rutland’s death in September 1563, Farrar was unable to retain the Lincoln seat, but the and Earl of Bedford, who had married Rutland’s widow, found him another at Tavistock. Farrar died before the second session of the 1572 Parliament: a by-election return replacing him for Tavistock is dated 30 Jan. 1576.2Vis. London (Harl. Soc. cix, cx), 85; J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 53; HMC Rutland, i. 62-8, 140; iv. 355-8, 362, 370, 373, 380; HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 49; CP, ii. 76; C219/282/38.