BYROM, John (1659-95), of Byrom and Parr Hall, Lancs.

Byrom’s family had been settled in Lancashire since the 13th century, and an ancestor had served as knight of the shire in 1421 and 1429. Byrom was an avowed foe of the local Presbyterians, and in 1687 he pressed Bishop Cartwright of Chester to remove the Presbyterian congregation that had taken possession of St. Helen’s chapel, a chapel of ease in Prescott parish, and to install an Anglican curate. Throughout the 1690s Byrom continued to pursue this issue. In 1691 he successfully removed the Presbyterian trustees of St. Helen’s chapel, and then in 1692 he prevented the chapel being registered, under the terms of the Toleration Act, as a Dissenting meeting place. Byrom’s strenuous activities in this field proved unsuccessful however, as the Presbyterians were able to register the chapel in 1696, and retained possession of it until 1710.2 Cartwright Diary (Cam. Soc. ser. 1, xxii), 77; HMC Kenyon, 246, 262; Trans. Lancs. and Cheshire Antiq. Soc. lxxv. 150–2; VCH Lancs. iii. 375.

In December 1693 Byrom entered the lists at the Wigan by-election occasioned by the death of Sir Richard Standish, 1st Bt.* Campaigning with support of Sir Roger Bradshaigh, 3rd Bt.*, Byrom was ‘neither niggard of his purse nor far fetched’, and was said to stand ‘very fair with the generality of the townsmen’. He comfortably defeated his rivals for the vacant seat, but soon after his return he informed his cousin Roger Kenyon* that he would not be able to attend Parliament for ‘some seasonable time’ as his private affairs needed ‘some settling’, and it seems Byrom may never have taken his seat. He died between 28 Feb. 1695, when he made his will (at Parr), and 3 Mar. 1695, when he was buried. Byrom’s only son Samuel, ‘Beau Byrom’, was a spendthrift who in 1710 sold Byrom Hall for £1,200 to the father of John Byrom of Manchester, the Jacobite poet.3 Lancs. RO, Kenyon mss DDKe 9/66/25, Thomas to Roger Kenyon 15 Jan. 1693[-4]; Byron, 108–9; HMC Kenyon, 278, 282–3; J. Byron, Byrom’s Manchester, ii. 21–25.