BAKER, Alexander (1611-85), of New Windsor, Berks.

Baker, the son and grandson of surgeons to the crown, became an attorney. His daughter described him as always faithful to Church and King, but he took no ascertainable part in the Civil War, and Cromwell quartered at his house shortly before the trial of Charles I. He was returned for Windsor by the corporation at the general election of 1660, and allowed to sit on the merits of the return. He may have been moderately active as a committeeman. He was appointed by name to the committee for the bill for settling ecclesiastical livings, and possibly to 12 others, including those for regulating fees, preventing marital separation, and settling wine licences. He spoke twice against the bill empowering the corporation of London to recover the cost of decorating the City for the King’s return, saying that it would fall upon the owners of houses where Members lodged. He does not appear to have declared his own interest as landlord of three tenements in Milk Street. On 13 Dec. he alleged that not one in 20 in the City were for the bill, which was an innovation. This lukewarm attitude to the Restoration suggests that he usually voted with the Opposition. The corporation withdrew their support at the next general election, but Baker and William Taylor were returned by the ‘burgesses at large’. The House found in favour of the corporation franchise, and Baker passed the remainder of his life ‘in peaceful retirement’, emerging only to give evidence to the elections committee in 1679 in favour of the inhabitant franchise. He died on 4 Aug. 1685. His memorial inscription in Windsor parish church did not fail to mention his brief service in Parliament a quarter of a century before.3CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 98; C8/161/27; State Trials, v. 1122; Ashmole, Berks. iii. 78-79; Old Parl. Hist. xxiii. 46, 50; Fire Court ed. P. E. Jones, ii. 222-3; PCC 96 Cann; Tighe and Davis, ii. 297; CJ, ix. 585.