KENDALL, John (1631-1702), of Treworgey, Duloe, Cornw.

The Kendalls of Treworgey were the senior branch of the Cornish Kendalls, although by the early seventeenth century they had been eclipsed both in prosperity and importance by their cousins at Pelyn.13Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 259. John Kendall was barely ten years old when his father died in 1641. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in February 1649, with one Richard Duck acting as his manucaptor, or surety.14LIL, Admiss. Bk. 7, f. 87. Soon after he reached his majority, Kendall assumed his place in local government, being added to the commission of the peace in September 1653, the commissions for poor prisoners and assessment in October and November respectively.15C231/6, p. 266; A. and O.; An Act for an Assessment. He cooperated with the Cromwellian government during the mid-1650s: in August 1656, as a local justice of the peace, he investigated an illegitimacy case involving the borough of West Looe; and in March and October of the same year he signed orders as one of the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth – the local deputies to Major-general John Disbrowe*.16Cornw. RO, B/WLO/187/1; B/WLO/188; B/WLO/194. As justice, Kendall did not share the hatred of the Quakers displayed by most of his colleagues, and was commended for his toleration by George Fox.17G. Fox, The West Answering to the North (1657), 54 (E.900.3). In June 1657 Kendall was again appointed as one of the assessment commissioners for his county.18A. and O. It was this local standing that no doubt influenced his election as MP for East Looe in December 1658, alongside another gentleman from the neighbourhood, John Buller*.19Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/79. There is no evidence for his activity in the Commons at this time.

In January 1660 Kendall was re-appointed to the local assessment commission, and in the following March was named to the militia commission.20A. and O. In the Convention he was returned for West Looe, and served for East Looe again in 1681, securing the seat on the latter occasion with the help of his cousin, Thomas Kendall of Killigarth. This extended family was evidently important to Kendall. In October 1676 he was appointed executor of the will of his cousin, Thomas Kendall of Cutparrot in Morval, and in July 1702 he was given a small legacy by another cousin, James Kendall†, the wealthy former governor of Barbados. Kendall had little time to enjoy his money, as he died only a few months later.21PROB11/353/247; Westminster Abbey Regs. 264. In earlier years he had been forced to sell off the Treworgey estate, and had taken up residence in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Middlesex. In his will, drawn up on 30 October 1702, he left his goods, chattels, debts and mortgages to his niece, Margaret Harte (daughter of Richard Harte of Limerick), and the only legacies that he could leave, in his straitened circumstances, were mourning rings for other relatives.22PROB11/467/463. Kendall did not marry, and left no known descendants.