William Bray (1682–1720), of Barrington Park, Gloucestershire was a British Army officer 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. T ...

from 1715 to 1720. Bray was the second son of Reginald Bray of Barrington Park and his wife Jane Rainton, daughter of William Rainton of Shilton, Warwickshire. He joined the British Army as a Cornet in the Royal Horse Guards in 1700 and was promoted captain in 1706 after which he was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the

7th Dragoons The 7th Queen's Own Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first formed in 1689. It saw service for three centuries, including the First World War and the Second World War. The regiment survived the immediate post-war reduction in ...

in 1711. He succeeded his elder brother to Barrington Park in 1712. Bray was elected Whig Member (MP) for

Monmouth Boroughs Monmouth Boroughs (also known as the Monmouth District of Boroughs) was a United Kingdom constituencies, parliamentary constituency consisting of several towns in Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire. It returned one Member of Parliament (Uni ...

at the 1715 general election. He voted for the Administration, except when he cast his vote against the

Peerage Bill {{short description, Proposed British law of 1719 The Peerage Bill was a 1719 measure proposed by the British Whig government led by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope and Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland which would have largely halted the ...

proposed in 1719. Bray died unmarried on 15 April 1720, after which Barrington Park passed to his younger brother

Edmund Bray Edmund Bray (1686–1725) of Barrington Park, Gloucestershire was a British politician who sat in the English House of Commons from 1701 to 1708 and in the British House of Commons from 1720 to 1722. Bray was baptized on 7 September 1678, a you ...

References

1682 births 1720 deaths People from Cotswold District 7th Dragoon Guards officers Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Welsh constituencies British MPs 1715–1722 {{Wales-GreatBritain-MP-stub