John Proby (c. 1698 – 15 March 1762) was an English

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popu ...

(1722–27) and Stamford (1743–47).

Life

Proby was the son of William Proby of

Elton Hall Elton Hall is a baronial hall in Elton, Cambridgeshire. It has been the ancestral home of the Proby family (sometime known as the Earls of Carysfort) since 1660. The hall lies in an estate through which the River Nene runs. The building inc ...

, Huntingdonshire and formerly of Fort St George, Madras, who was son of Charles Proby, and a remote heir of Sir Peter Proby through his cousin John Proby. John Proby died in 1710, then his daughter Frances in 1711, and William Proby inherited. He was also heir to his paternal grandfather, Emmanuel Proby who was the fourth son of Sir Peter Proby. Charles Proby was a close ally of

Sir Edward Winter Edward Winter (?1622–1686) was an English administrator employed by the East India Company (EIC). Life The son of William Winter and great-grandson of Admiral Sir William Winter, he was born in 1622 or 1623, and went to India about 1630, pro ...

in the power struggles in Madras of the 1660s. He predeceased Dorothy his wife, who died in 1685; he is said to have been living in 1684. He had another son, Charles, who became rector of

Tewin Tewin is an English village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England between the towns of Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, Welwyn (village) and the county town Hertford, it is within commuting distance of London. Tewin Wood is a very affluent re ...

, and there was a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Gabriel Roberts at Fort St. George in 1687. William Proby went to

Fort St George Fort St. George (or historically, White Town) is a fortress in the coastal city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1639, it was the first English (later British) fortress in India. The construction of the fort provided the impetus for further ...

, Madras as an employee of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

, and was a writer there in 1683. He was secretary of the Council there in 1688, under

Elihu Yale Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Although born in Boston, Massachusetts, he only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales and India ...

as President. In 1702 he moved to Surat, where he was second on the Council. He served in that capacity for about a decade, under Nicholas Waite, Ephraim Bendall and William Aislabie. According to ''Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras'', William Proby was discharged by the Company.

Family background

There is conflicting information about William Proby and his family. His mother, Dorothy (''née'' Torriano), went on to marry Thomas Lucas, and died in 1685 in Madras. According to one source, William married Frances Gray (''née'' English, widow of Thomas Gray) in 1693, and had two children with her, John and Editha. The children returned with him to England. Editha married Sir John Osborne, 7th Baronet, with whom she had six sons and four daughters, and died in 1745. William Proby is also recorded as married to Henrietta, daughter of Robert Cornewall, and Henrietta is given as mother of John Proby. The family seat was

, then in

. The Proby inheritance also included the manor of Ranes (Raans, Raynes, Amersham) in Buckinghamshire; it was sold in 1735. William Proby was

High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire The High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, in common with other counties, was originally the King's representative on taxation upholding the law in Saxon times. The word Sheriff evolved from 'shire-reeve'. Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the ...

in 1719. John Proby succeeded his father William in 1739.

Career

Proby was admitted to

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

in 1715. He was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

for

in 1722, a seat he held until 1727, and later represented Stamford from 1734 to 1747. Proby died in March 1762.

Personal life

Proby married the Hon. Jane Leveson-Gower, daughter of

John Leveson-Gower, 1st Baron Gower John Leveson-Gower, 1st Baron Gower PC (7 January 1675 – 31 August 1709) was a member of the Leveson-Gower family. He was the son of Sir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet and his wife Jane Granville.''Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1532–1812'' * John Proby (1720–1772), succeeded his father as Member of Parliament for Stamford and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Carysfort * William Proby * Thomas Proby (1723 – 8 July 1758), killed at

Fort Ticonderoga Fort Ticonderoga (), formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French milit ...

in the

Battle of Carillon The Battle of Carillon, also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, Chartrand (2000), p. 57 was fought on July 8, 1758, during the French and Indian War (which was part of the global Seven Years' War). It was fought near Fort Carillon (now ...

* Capt. Charles Proby (1725–1799) RN * Baptist Proby (d. 1807), became

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west o ...

Jane Proby died in 1726.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proby, John Proby (d. 1762), John Year of birth uncertain Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1722–1727 British MPs 1734–1741 British MPs 1741–1747