Anthony St John

Sir Anthony St John (1586–1649) was an English Member of Parliament (MP) who sat in the House of Commons in 1624 and 1625.

St John supported the Parliamentarian cause in the English Civil War.

Biography

The second son of Oliver St John, 3rd Baron St John of Bletso and his wife Dorothy Read, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Read, of Boddington, Gloucestershire, he was admitted a fellow commoner at Queens' College, Cambridge on 9 November 1601.

Knighted on 5 August 1608, aged 21, at Bletsoe together with his younger brother Alexander, all his brothers, Oliver, Rowland, Henry and Beauchamp, became MPs and also received knighthoods.

In 1624 Sir Anthony was elected as Member of Parliament for Wigan, and in 1625 as MP for Cheshire, being returned to parliament for Wigan, Lancashire again in 1626 and 1628.

Commissioned into the Earl of Essex's Regiment of Foot as a Captain in 1642, St John supported the Parliamentary side during the Civil War.

Family On 24 April 1610 at St Andrew Holborn in the City of London, Sir Anthony married firstly Katherine, Lady Herbert (died 1617) widow of Sir William Herbert and a daughter of Alderman Morgan Awbrey, Master Salter of London, having by her a son Oliver St John (who died aged 8) and Dorothy (died 1655), who married Colonel Sir John Booth.

St John married secondly, in 1618, Thomasin née Anderton, widow of Thomas Dutton (died 1614), of Dutton, Cheshire. Sir Anthony and Lady St John divided their time between homes in Cheshire and London, as well as the family seat at Fonmon Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan which was falling into a state of disrepair. Upon his daughter's death, the Fonmon estate was sold in 1655 to Colonel Philip Jones.

His elder brother Oliver succeeded to the family title of Baron St John in 1618, and was created Earl of Bolingbroke in 1624.