John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington

John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington (1678 – 14 December 1734), known as John Shute until 1710, was an English dissenting theologian and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1723.

Background and education Barrington was born as John Shute at Theobalds House, near Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of Benjamin Shute, a merchant, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of dissenting preacher Rev. Joseph Caryll. He received part of his education at the University of Utrecht between 1694 and 1698 and, after returning to England, studied law in the Inner Temple. and the other by an admirer John Wildman of Beckett Hall at Shrivenham, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). Barrington was now one of the leading dissenters.

In 1725, Barrington published his principal work, entitled Miscellanea Sacra or a New Method of considering so much of the History of the Apostles as is contained in Scripture,—afterwards reprinted with additions and corrections, in 1770, by his son Shute. In the same year he published An Essay on the Several Dispensations of God to Mankind. Their daughter Anne married the Hon. Thomas Clarges, son of Sir Thomas Clarges.