ANDREW, Thomas (c.1645-1722), of Great Addington and Harleston, Northants.

Andrew’s family had held land in Northamptonshire since the reign of Edward IV, and by the Civil War had established several branches. The senior branch of Charwelton produced a royalist martyr, Col. Eusebius Andrews, and the Drayton line were devoted to the same cause; three sons of the first baronet were killed at Worcester. But Andrew’s grandfather held pronouncedly Calvinist beliefs, and his uncle was returned as a recruiter for Weobley in 1645, the first of the family to enter Parliament. Andrew’s father was apparently a working farmer and sent his son to Cambridge as a ‘plebeian’. He was nearly 70 when he became head of the family, and was passed over in the succession to the Harleston estate, though given a modest annuity. Andrew had some difficulty in proving his uncle’s will, as it had not been witnessed; but as soon as he had done so he set about completing his education at the inns of court at an unusually advanced age. He was added to the commission of the peace in 1680, but did not act, perhaps on grounds of conscience. He came under suspicion as one of the ‘cabalistic men’ who called on the Earl of Manchester (Robert Montagu) during his visit to Northampton. He was listed among the Northamptonshire Whigs in 1682 and presented by the grand jury as disaffected in the following year. But in 1687 he was restored to local office, unwisely as it proved. As sheriff he received the writs for the 1688 election, but refused to issue a precept for Northampton; and as deputy lieutenant he signed warrants for the militia to attend Princess Anne. After the Revolution he was again pricked as sheriff; but when Lewis Watson succeeded to the peerage, Andrew was returned for Higham Ferrers, five miles from his paternal estate of Great Addington. He was licensed to leave his county, but he served on no committees and made no speeches in the Convention; nor did he support the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations, though he was doubtless a Whig, as in the later Parliaments of William III. He was buried at Harleston on 19 Oct. 1722 after several years of ill-health. No later member of the family entered Parliament.3Baker, i. 295-6; D. Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 391; PCC 44 Grey, 138, 144 Dycer; CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 535; 1689, p. 198; SP29/421/216; Somers Tracts, viii. 410; Northants. RO, Baker mss 712; Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 120.