Sir John Colman Rashleigh, 1st Baronet

Sir John Colman Rashleigh, 1st Baronet (23 November 1772 – 4 August 1847) was the first of the Rashleigh baronets and known as a leading figure among the gentry in the parliamentary reform movement.

His paternal grandparents were Jonathan Rashleigh (a son of Jonathan Rashleigh) and Mary (née Clayton) Rashleigh (a daughter of Sir William Clayton, 1st Baronet). His uncle, Philip Rashleigh died without issue, so his cousin, William Rashleigh, MP for Fowey, inherited the Rashleigh family estates, including Menabilly. His maternal grandfather was Dr. William Battie, president of the Royal College of Physicians.

Career Rashleigh, who was referred to as a radical, was active in pro-Catholic politics for many years, in 1820, he wrote an open letter to Prime Minister George Canning regarding Canning's "laboured and volunteer attack on the Friends of Parliamentary Reform."

After Rashleigh had been awarded his baronetcy, he "acknowledged that the peers had a 'valuable' constitutional role to play, as a 'patrician barrier' between the pretensions of the crown and 'popular passions and caprice', but they were now opposed to both and had forgotten that their privileges were 'a trust for the benefit of the people'." On 30 September 1831, he was created Rashleigh Baronet of Prideaux, by Lord Grey's government. and her younger brother William Williams (Weymouth MP) was Whig MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis.

Before Harriet’s death on 7 July 1832, they were the parents of four children:

Battie Rashleigh (1811–1822), who died young. Jane Rashleigh (b. 1809)

On 17 October 1833, he married, secondly, Martha Gould. She was the youngest daughter of John Gould MD of Truro. They had no children together.

Sir John died on 4 August 1847 and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Colman. The Dowager Lady Rashleigh died 9 June 1879, aged 98, and left her estate to her nephew John Nutcombe Gould (father of James Nutcombe Gould) and his wife Katherine (née Grant) Gould (a daughter of Maj. Gen. James Grant).