Richard Onslow (Parliamentarian)

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For other people called Richard Onslow, see Richard Onslow

Sir Richard Onslow (30 July 1601-19 May 1664) was an English Member of Parliament and fought on the Parliamentary side during the English Civil War. He was the grandson of one Speaker of the House of Commons and the grandfather of another, both also called Richard Onslow.

Onslow was knighted on 2 June 1624. He entered Parliament in 1628 as member for Surrey, and also represented that county in both the Short and Long Parliaments. When the Civil War broke out in 1642, he raised a regiment for Parliament, and in 1644 led his men at the siege of Basing House.

Being of moderate views, he was one of the members excluded from Parliament in Pride's Purge in December 1648, but he was elected again for Surrey in the parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In 1658 he was elevated to Cromwell's new House of Peers. He returned to the Commons in April 1660 as MP for Guildford, where he worked closely with his more influential friend Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper to bring about the Restoration. He remained MP for Guildford until his death

Sir Richard died in 1664. His son, Arthur (1622-1688), was also MP for Guildford from 1660 to 1679 and for Surrey from 1679 until 1685.

[edit] References

• Concise Dictionary of National Biography (1930)
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
• Mark Noble, Memoirs of several persons and families... allied to or descended from... the Protectorate-House of Cromwell (Birmingham: Pearson & Rollason, 1784) [1]