Squire Bence (15 May 1597 – 27 November 1648) was an English merchant, seafarer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons of England The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England (which Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, incorporated Wales) from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was re ...

from 1640 to 1648. Bence was the son of Alexander Bence and his wife Marie Squier daughter of Thomas Squier.the Peerage.com
/ref> He was a merchant and shipowner who undertook trading expeditions by sea. Bence Island in the estuary of the Sierra Leone River was named after him. In the 1620s he is recorded as raiding an Algerian ship and removing Christian slaves and prisoners from it. In April 1640, Bence was elected Member of Parliament for

Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the English county, county of Suffolk, England, north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the comp ...

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on 20 February 1640 and sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640. It was so called because of its short session of only three weeks. After 11 years of per ...

. He was re-elected in 1642 as MP for Aldeburgh when he joined his brother

Alexander Bence Alexander Bence (born ca. 1590) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1640 to 1648 and in 1654. He supported the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War. Biography Bence was the son of Ale ...

in the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an Parliament of England, English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened f ...

. He sat until his death in 1648. In 1642 he was appointed by parliament as one of the Commissioners for the Affairs of (His Majesty's) Navy, the King having prevented all his principal officers of the navy from performing their duties. Bence died aged 51 years, 6 months and 12 days at

Thorington Thorington is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located around south-east of the town of Halesworth, immediately south of the village of Wenhaston. The A12 main road runs through ...

SuffolkThe registers of the parish of Thorington in the county of Suffolk, with notes of the different acts of Parliament referring to them, and notices of the Bence family, with pedigree, and other families
/ref> although he is also commemorated on the family monument at Aldeburgh.Bence&grave=12
/ref> Bence married Elizabeth Pett on 26 August 1617 at St. Dunstan, Stepney, London. His second wife was Mary.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Bence, Squire 1597 births 1648 deaths 17th-century English merchants English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1640–1648