Constituency Dates
Abingdon [22 May 1689]
Family and Education
b. c. 1650, 1st s. of Richard Southby. educ. Wadham, Oxf. matric. 19 Dec. 1668, aged 18; M. Temple 1671. m. 23 Jan. 1677, Mary, da. of Thomas Trenchard of Wolveton, Dorset, 1s. 2da. suc. fa. 1704.1Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 283; Reading Univ. mss, H. C. Cherry, Bercherienses Prosapiae, 2, p. 47; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 326-7.
Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Berks. 1677 – 80, 1689 – 90; freeman, Abingdon Sept. 1688; j.p. Berks. by 1701–d.2Abingdon bor. mins. 2, p. 54.

Address
Main residence: Carswell, Buckland, Berks.
biography text

A strong Whig like his father and his brother-in-law John Trenchard, Southby came under suspicion at the time of the Rye House Plot. He was apparently a Whig collaborator, the King’s electoral agents reporting in 1688 that he was proposed by the Presbyterian party as candidate for Abingdon, ten miles from his home. He was returned at a by-election in May 1689, but left no trace on the records of the Convention. He was unseated in favour of Sir John Stonhouse on 8 Jan. 1690, and did not contest the constituency again, though he had hopes of election for Oxford University in 1695. He was buried at Buckland on 1 Apr. 1741, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.3CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 227; CJ, x. 126, 162; 277-8, 327; HMC Downshire, i. 563; Cherry, 2, p. 47.

Author
L.N.
G.J.
Volume
Commons 1660-1690
Notes
  • 1. Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 283; Reading Univ. mss, H. C. Cherry, Bercherienses Prosapiae, 2, p. 47; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 326-7.
  • 2. Abingdon bor. mins. 2, p. 54.
  • 3. CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 227; CJ, x. 126, 162; 277-8, 327; HMC Downshire, i. 563; Cherry, 2, p. 47.