Thomas Rowney

Thomas Rowney (30 April 1668 – 31 August 1727) was a British Tory politician who sat in the English House of Commons between 1695 and 1708 and in the British House of Commons from 1708 to 1722. Early life Rowney was baptised on 31 April 1668. He was the only surviving son of Thomas Rowney, of St Giles, London by his second wife, Catherine Bateman (d. 1705). His father, the son of a minor Worcestershire gentleman, had first settled in Oxford around 1650, setting up practice as an attorney. He married the widow of a fellow lawyer which enhanced his wealth and standing, and he acquired considerable property in Oxford's outlying parishes. He was educated at Shilton, near Burford, in Oxfordshire, in a small school which produced at the same time a Lord High Treasurer (Lord Oxford and Mortimer), a Lord High Chancellor (Lord Harcourt) and a Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (Lord Trevor). He then matriculated at St John's College, Oxford in 1684. He entered the Inner Temple in 1686, and was called to the bar in 1694.