BARKER, Samuel (c.1659-1708), of Fairford Park, Glos.

Barker’s family was originally from Shropshire, but his grandfather had been a merchant in and Member for Bristol and his father had purchased Fairford at the Restoration. Barker’s first attempt at Cricklade, in 1690, ended in defeat, and five years later he rejected a proposal from Henry Ireton* to stand for Cirencester. When he was eventually returned in 1702, it was largely through his own efforts and on ‘the Whig interest’. His relationship to the Tory Lord Leominster (Sir William Fermor†), whose first wife had been Barker’s sister, meant nothing in political terms, and probably by this time little if anything socially. Nor was his fondness for Fairford parish church, which he was mainly responsible for ‘beautifying’, a reflection of any political commitment to ‘the Church’ in general. Forecast as a probable opponent of the Tack, he did not vote for it on 28 Nov. 1704. He is not known to have made any speeches. Re-elected in 1705, Barker voted for the Court candidate as Speaker on 25 Oct. 1705, and was listed as a Whig in early 1708. His other parliamentary activities are difficult to distinguish from those of Scorie Barker*.2 Vis. Glos. 10; Guise Mems. (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xxviii), 162; Add. 40794, ff. 2–3; Atkyns, 227.

Barker was unable to put to political advantage the financial resources open to him as a result of his marriage in 1706 to ‘a very considerable fortune in the City’ for he died just before the next election, on 1 May 1708. His estate passed in due course to his longer-surviving daughter, the wife of James Lambe of Hackney. She, outliving her husband, willed it in turn to one John Raymond who, on inheriting, changed his name to Barker.3Post Man, 18–20 July 1706; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 299; Rudder, 443; An Acct. of Fairford (1791), 14.