Thomas Estcourt Cresswell

Thomas Estcourt Cresswell (12 July 1712 – 14 November 1788) was an English landowner and politician.^[1]

Biography

He was the son of

Pinkney Park, near Malmesbury

He began his career as a merchant trading with China and India, but ceased this occupation around 1732.[1]

He inherited the heavily encumbered Pinkney Park estate in 1743 from his father. Cresswell was returned as Member of Parliament for Wootton Bassett from 1754 to 1774.^[1] He died at his seat in Pinkney Park on 14 November 1788.

He had gained a degree of notoriety as a

Fleet Marriage. Miss Scrope's suit was successful, the Cresswell–Warneford marriage was declared null and void, and the children (a son, Estcourt, and a daughter) were bastardised. However, a third marriage was revealed by another search through the Fleet records that antedated the others; thus Cresswell's last two "marriages" were bigamous.^[2] It was stated that he endeavoured to keep possession of both wives at the same time by a "base and unmanly contrivance". For a considerable time Miss Scrope retained a deep sense of her injuries; in 1749 she published a pamphlet in her own name, called Miss Scrope's Answer to Mr. Cresswell's Narrative.^[3]

Cresswell had at least another four illegitimate children with a Miss Catharine Jenkins between 1749 and 1755, the three survivors of whom received substantial bequests from their father on a par with their half brother Estcourt, who was MP for Cirencester from 1768 to 1774.

A fictional account of some of these events is given in "Love and Avarice: Or, the Fatal Effects of Preferring Wealth to Beauty" by a 'Lady of Shropshire' published in 1749, in which Cresswell is Clodio and Anne Warneford Leonora.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "CRESSWELL, Thomas Estcourt (1712–88), of Pinkney Park, Wilts". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
^ Lawrence Stone, The Road to Divorce: England, 1530–1987 [Oxford University Press, 1990], p. 119.
^ Notes and Queries No. 12, 19 January 1850

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Martin Madan	Henry St John 1761–1774 1754–1774	Succeeded by Henry St John Robert Scott

[:0-1] "CRESSWELL, Thomas Estcourt (1712–88), of Pinkney Park, Wilts". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 19 June 2016.

[2] Lawrence Stone, The Road to Divorce: England, 1530–1987 [Oxford University Press, 1990], p. 119.

[3] Notes and Queries No. 12, 19 January 1850

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