Sir John Wolstenholme, 1st Baronet (died 1670) was an English 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. ...

in 1640. He supported the

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side in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

Biography

Wolstenholme was the son of Sir John Wolstenholme (died 1639) and his wife Catherine Fanshaw, daughter of John Fanshawe of Fanshawe Gate Hall. He became a

customs farmer Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contract ...

with his father and was knighted by King Charles I.

William Betham William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

''The Baronetage of England, or the History of the English Baronets ..., Volume 2''
/ref> In 1620, Wolstenholme bought a house called Clay Hall from Christopher Hatton's widow, Alice Fanshawe. He was a Virginia commissioner before the government and lobbied for a return to the original charter. In April 1640, he 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

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in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Aft ...

. He supported the king in the Civil War, selling property and incurring debts to provide finance for the Royalist cause. As a result, he was then fined by parliament. He and his father's partners in the customs farming business were required to pay £150,000 which led to the sale of his estates. His son Henry and brother-in-law Sir Thomas Dallison were both killed in the Civil War. After the Restoration, he became a farmer of customs again and was given a patent for collecting taxes on outbound goods in the

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. He was created a baronet, of London, by King Charles II in 1664.

Death

Wolstenholme died in 1670 and was buried on 15 July at

Stanmore Stanmore is part of the London Borough of Harrow in London. It is centred northwest of Charing Cross, lies on the outskirts of the London urban area and includes Stanmore Hill, one of the highest points of London, at high. The district, which ...

in St John's Church, which had been built by his father.''Stanmore Magna'', The Environs of London: volume 3: County of Middlesex (1795), pp. 391–403
British-history.ac.uk. Accessed 5 January 2011. Wolstenholme married Ann Dallison of Laughton, Lincolnshire. His son,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

, succeeded to the baronetcy.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolstenholme, John Date of birth unknown Year of birth unknown 1670 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of England Cavaliers English MPs 1640 (April)