Constituency Dates
Maldon 1741 – 1747
Family and Education
bap. 12 Nov. 1712, o.s. of Richard Drury of Colne, Hunts. by Joyce, da. of Thomas Beacon of Great Ilford, Essex. educ. Merton, Oxf. 1729; I. Temple 1732, called 1736. m. 11 Oct. 1737, Martha, da. of Sir John Tyrrell, 3rd Bt., of Heron, Essex, 1s. d.v.p. 2da. suc. uncle Thomas Beacon at Wickham Hall 1737,1As coh. with his cousin Thomas Beacon Townshend, who, dying the same year, left him his share of the estate (PCC 76, 171 Wake). fa. 1738. cr. Bt. 16 Feb. 1739.
Offices Held

Sheriff, Essex 1740 – 41, Northants. 1748–9.

Address
Main residences: Wickham Hall, nr. Maldon, Essex; Overstone, Northants.
biography text

In 1737 Drury, a clerk in the court of Chancery, inherited from his maternal uncle, a brewer in Shoreditch, a fortune estimated at £230,000, including an estate near Maldon. Returned as a Whig for Maldon in 1741, he voted with the Administration on the chairman of the elections committee in 1741 and on the Hanoverians, 1742 and 1744, speaking ‘most heartily’ on their behalf in December 1743, but was absent from the division on them in 1746.2PCC 76 Wake; Gent. Mag. 1737, pp. 253, 637; Yorke’s parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 140.

In 1747, having been rejected as a candidate by the corporation of Maldon, he was put down at Leicester House as one of the persons to be brought into Parliament by the Prince of Wales ‘who are not able to bring in themselves’, but he did not stand again, though the 2nd Lord Egmont included him in a list of persons who were to be brought into Parliament on the Prince’s accession. He died 19 Jan. 1759.3HMC Fortescue, i. 108, 122.

Author
E.C.
Volume
Commons 1715-1754
Notes
  • 1. As coh. with his cousin Thomas Beacon Townshend, who, dying the same year, left him his share of the estate (PCC 76, 171 Wake).
  • 2. PCC 76 Wake; Gent. Mag. 1737, pp. 253, 637; Yorke’s parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 140.
  • 3. HMC Fortescue, i. 108, 122.