Ralph Widdrington (''c.'' 1640 – 22 June 1718) was one of the eight sons (10 children) of

William Widdrington, 1st Baron Widdrington William Widdrington, 1st Baron Widdrington (11 July 16103 September 1651) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642 and was created a peer in 1643. He fought in the Royalist army in the English Civil ...

and his wife, Mary ( Thorold). He was commissioned Ensign in the Earl of Ogle's regiment in 1667, his brothers Edward and Roger being commissioned in the same regiment at the same time.

Burke's Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great Bri ...

(extinct) Peerage states, following earlier genealogies, that he lost his sight in "the Dutch War" without stating which one. In the light of Widdrington's subsequent career, that seems unlikely: The Earl of Ogle's regiment is not recorded as in action in the 1665–1667 War and, in 1671, Ralph Widdrington was commissioned Captain in the Portsmouth garrison company. Thereafter, he was at Berwick garrison as Lieutenant to the Duke of Newcastle. Captain George Carleton's memoirs go further and state that Widdrington lost his life at the Siege of Maastricht in 1676, as a volunteer in the Dutch Army. Ralph may have been a volunteer in the Dutch Army then, although that is uncertain, but it was his brother Roger Widdrington who was killed at Maastricht. In 1685, he became

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 of ...

for

Berwick upon Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...

and remained so until 1689. Immediately prior to King Charles' death (in February, 1685) the town of Berwick had petitioned for a new Charter, and ''There was present at the delivery Captain Ralph Widdrington and Captain Biggerstaffe, but they stood aside and were taken noe notice of. However, they two are the towne's irreconcileable enemies, and they endeavour to have the Charter so drawn that all the towne's grounds may be given to the garrison, and that all the burgesses be no burgesses, and only a certain number as they please to name to be inserted in the new Charter, and these only to be burgesses, and impose a parcel of justices of peace upon the town, etc.''. According to that narrative, all of the aldermen and officers of the town, and seven score burgesses and inhabitants were removed from the voter list. In that manner, Ralph Widdrington and Philip Bickerstaffe were returned to Parliament. Widdrington probably never took his seat, was removed from all offices in 1688, and followed King James overseas. In or about 1693, he returned to England, and was granted permission to remain. He does not appear to have taken an active role in politics or in Jacobite activities after his return although the family William, 4th Baron and his brothers Charles and Peregrine took part in the

Jacobite rising of 1715 The Jacobite rising of 1715 ( gd, Bliadhna Sheumais ; or 'the Fifteen') was the attempt by James Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts The House of Stuart, ori ...

for which the Widdrington family was attaindered as Catholic and Jacobite. He died in London, in 1718.

References

* * * 1640s births 1718 deaths English MPs 1685–1687 People from Widdrington, Northumberland Younger sons of barons {{17thC-England-MP-stub