Robert Drew (1575–1645) of

Southbroom Southbroom is a coastal village in Ugu District Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. It is located 143 km south-west of Durban, and 213 km south of Pietermaritzburg. The village was officially founded in 1933, an ...

, Devizes, Wiltshire was an English lawyer and politician who sat in 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. ...

at various times between 1597 and 1625. Drew was the son of John Drew of Southbroom and his wife Eleanor Cooke, daughter of William Cooke of Lacock. History of Parliament Online - Robert Drew
/ref> He matriculated at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

on 11 February 1592 aged 18 and entered

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

in 1592. 'Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714: Disbrowe-Dyve', Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714: Abannan-Kyte (1891), pp. 406-439. Date accessed: 29 October 2011
/ref> He succeeded to the estate of Southbroom on the death of his father in 1614. In 1597, Drew was elected

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

Devizes Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century ...

. On 18 May 1599 the Middle Temple benchers refused his

call to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

because he had not performed his "exercises of learning", but he was eventually called by 1602. He was re-elected MP for Devizes in 1601. From 1603 he was a common councilman for Devizes, remaining in post until 1640. He was re-elected MP for Devizes in 1604 and was a J.P. for Devizes from 1606 to 1640. In 1625 he was elected MP for Devizes once again. Drew died at the age of about 70. He had married Jane Jackman, daughter of John Jackman, citizen and grocer of London on 25 May 1602. They had six sons and five daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drew, Robert 1575 births 1645 deaths People from Devizes Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Members of the Middle Temple English MPs 1597–1598 English MPs 1601 English MPs 1604–1611 English MPs 1625