John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington

John Shute Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington (1678 – 14 December 1734) was an English lawyer and theologian

Background and education

Born at Theobalds House, near Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, he was the son of the merchant, Benjamin Shute. He received part of his education at the University of Utrecht; and, after returning to England in 1698, studied law in the Inner Temple.

Career

In 1701 he published several pamphlets in favour of the civil rights of Protestant dissenters, to which class he belonged. On the recommendation of Lord Somers he was employed to induce the Presbyterians in Scotland to favour the union of the two kingdoms, and in 1708 he was rewarded for this service by being appointed to the office of commissioner of the customs.

From this, however, he was removed on the change of administration in 1711; but his fortune had, in the meantime, been improved by the bequest of two considerable estates—one of them left him by Francis Barrington of Tofts, whose name he assumed by act of parliament,^[1] the other by John Wildman of Beckett Hall at Shrivenham in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). Barrington now stood at the head of the dissenters. On the accession of George I he was returned to parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed; and in 1720 the king raised him to the Irish peerage as Baron Barrington, of Newcastle in the County of Limerick, and Viscount Barrington, of Ardglass in the County of Down. But having unfortunately engaged in the Harburg lottery, one of the bubble speculations of the time, he was expelled from the House of Commons in 1723—a punishment which was considered much too severe, and was thought to be due to personal malice of Walpole.

Monument to John Barrington in St. Andrew's parish church, Shrivenham, in the Vale of White Horse.

In 1725 he 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.

Family

Lord Barrington married Anne, daughter of Sir William Daines, in 1713. Their five sons all gained distinction.

• William, the eldest, became Chancellor of the Exchequer;
• John was a Major-General in the British Army;
• Daines was a lawyer, antiquarian and naturalist;
• Samuel was a Rear-Admiral in the Royal Navy;
• Shute became Bishop of Salisbury and Bishop of Durham.^[2]

Their daughter Anne married the Hon. Thomas Clarges, son of Sir Thomas Clarges.

Notes

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barrington, John Shute, 1st Viscount". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.