John Proby (c. 1698 – 15 March 1762) was an English Member of Parliament for

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England, which was historically a county in its own right. It borders Peterborough to the north, Fenland to the north-east, East Cambridgeshire to the e ...

(1722–27) and Stamford (1743–47).

Life

Proby was the son of William Proby of Elton Hall, Huntingdonshire and formerly of Fort St George, Madras, who was son of Charles Proby, and a remote heir of Sir Peter Proby through his cousin John Proby. John Proby died in 1710, then his daughter Frances in 1711, and William Proby inherited. He was also heir to his paternal grandfather, Emmanuel Proby who was the fourth son of Sir Peter Proby. Charles Proby was a close ally of Sir Edward Winter in the power struggles in Madras of the 1660s. He predeceased Dorothy his wife, who died in 1685; he is said to have been living in 1684. He had another son, Charles, who became rector of Tewin, and there was a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Gabriel Roberts at Fort St. George in 1687. William Proby went to

Fort St George Fort St. George (or historically, White Town) is a fortress at the coastal city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1639, it was the first English overseas possessions, English (later British Empire, British) fortress in India. The construction ...

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

as an employee of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

, and was a writer there in 1683. He was secretary of the Council there in 1688, under

Elihu Yale Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British Americans, British-American Colonialism, colonial administrator. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale lived in America only as a child, and spent the rest of his life in England, Wales, a ...

as President. In 1702 he moved to

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

, where he was second on the Council. He served in that capacity for about a decade, under Nicholas Waite, Ephraim Bendall and William Aislabie. According to ''Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras'', William Proby was discharged by the Company.

Family background

There is conflicting information about William Proby and his family. His mother, Dorothy (''née'' Torriano), went on to marry Thomas Lucas, and died in 1685 in Madras. According to one source, William married Frances Gray (''née'' English, widow of Thomas Gray) in 1693, and had two children with her, John and Editha. The children returned with him to England. Editha married Sir John Osborne, 7th Baronet, with whom she had six sons and four daughters, and died in 1745. William Proby is also recorded as married to Henrietta, daughter of Robert Cornewall, and Henrietta is given as mother of John Proby. The family seat was Elton Hall, then in

. The Proby inheritance also included the manor of Ranes (Raans, Raynes,

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, south-east of Aylesbury and north-east of High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There ar ...

) in Buckinghamshire; it was sold in 1735. William Proby was High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1719. John Proby succeeded his father William in 1739.

Career

Proby was admitted to

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

in 1715. He was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

for

in 1722, a seat he held until 1727, and later represented Stamford from 1734 to 1747. Proby died in March 1762.

Personal life

Proby married the Hon. Jane Leveson-Gower, daughter of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Baron Gower, in 1719. They had five sons and one daughter:''Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1532–1812'' * John Proby (1720–1772), succeeded his father as Member of Parliament for Stamford and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Carysfort * William Proby * Thomas Proby (1723 – 8 July 1758), killed at

Fort Ticonderoga Fort Ticonderoga (), formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in northern New York. It was constructed between October 1755 and 1757 by French-Canadian ...

in the

Battle of Carillon The Battle of Carillon, also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, was fought on July 8, 1758, during the French and Indian War (which was part of the global Seven Years' War). It was fought near Fort Carillon (now known as Fort Ticonderog ...

* Capt. Charles Proby (1725–1799) RN * Baptist Proby (d. 1807), became Dean of

Lichfield Lichfield () is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated south-east of the county town of Stafford, north-east of Walsall, north-west of ...

Jane Proby died in 1726.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proby, John Proby (d. 1762), John Year of birth uncertain Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1722–1727 British MPs 1734–1741 British MPs 1741–1747