DUNCH, Wharton (by 1679-1705), of Pusey, Berks.

Though Dunch’s reported age when he matriculated at Cambridge suggests he was born in about 1682, he must have been born before the death of his father in 1679, for there was another, posthumous son born after Wharton. Dunch’s grandfather and great-grandfather had both sat for Berkshire in the Parliaments of the 1650s, but when Dunch himself entered the Commons it was for two boroughs held by his uncle Lord Wharton in the north of England, though he did make an unsuccessful attempt at Abingdon as a Whig candidate in the second election of 1701. He may have been given a week’s leave of absence on 23 Apr. 1701, and, not surprisingly, was classed with the Whigs in Robert Harley’s* list in December of that year. Though again standing with the support of his uncle, Dunch was defeated at Appleby in 1702. He was also unsuccessful at Southampton, where he stood on his own interest, based upon the possession of a nearby manor which his great-grandfather had gained by marriage. Wharton found an alternative seat for him at the next election, a ‘gain’ for the Whig party according to Lord Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*). He was also marked as ‘Low Church’ in a list of 1705, but died before Parliament met, Luttrell reporting the news on 22 Sept. His age was then given as 24. Since he made no will, his heir was his sister, who is supposed thereby to have had ‘a vast fortune’.3 W. A. Speck, Tory and Whig, 70, 154; VCH Hants, iii. 464; CSP Dom. 1700–2, p. 452; Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 594; Misc. Gen. et Her. 47.