CRACHERODE, Anthony (c.1674-1752), of Cholderton, Wilts.

Cracherode, who belonged to an ancient Essex family, was appointed chief clerk for Barbados at George I’s accession, executing the office by deputy.2Hoare, Wilts. Ambresbury, 102. In May 1715 he was made solicitor to the Treasury at a salary of £500 p.a., having ‘been recommended to the board as a person every way qualified for carrying on the business of a solicitor for the Treasury with greater expedition than the crown causes have formerly been managed’. Active in bringing the rebels of the Fifteen to trial, he served as solicitor to the House of Commons committees on the impeachments of the Earls of Oxford and Wintoun. Returned for Lostwithiel at a by-election in 1728, he voted with the Administration in every recorded division. Resigning his post at the Treasury in 1730,3Cal. Treas. Bks. xxix. 266; xxx. 112 and passim; xxxiii. 150-2; Cal. Treas. Pprs. 1731-4, pp. 9, 155. he did not stand in 1734, choosing ‘to retire from all public business’ at Cholderton, in order to devote ‘the remainder of his days in religious attention to the only and most important business, that of a future and happy immortality’.4Hoare, loc. cit.

He died 22 Apr. 1752 aged 72, leaving his estate to his cousin german, Lt.-Col. Mordaunt Cracherode, father of Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, the book collector.5PCC 119 Bettesworth.