John Jenyns

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

John Jenyns (c. 1660–1717) was an English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1710 to 1717.

He was the eldest son of Roger Jenyns of Hayes and his wife, Sarah Latch. He studied law, joining Middle Temple in 1681 and Inner Temple in 1687. He married Jane Clitherow of Boston House in 1682.

Jenyns inherited the Hayes manor from his father in 1693. At 25 he was elected conservator of the Fen Corporation, and later that year he became Surveyor General of the Fens, a position he held for about twenty years. He also acquired an estate at Donnington, Isle of Ely, and by 1702 he was serving on the Middlesex bench and in the lieutenancy. He was High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire for 1708–1709.

In the 1710 general election he was elected as a Tory Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire, and he was returned unopposed there in 1713. He voted against the French commercial treaty in 1713 and against the expulsion of Richard Steele in 1714. He was re-elected MP for Cambridgeshire in 1715 and, in 1716, voted against the septennial bill.

Jenyns died on 1 February 1717 and was buried in Hayes parish church. He had three sons, none of whom entered Parliament. He was the brother of Sir Roger Jenyns.