John Gurdon

John Gurdon (3 July 1595 – 9 September 1679) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1640 and 1660. He supported the parliamentary cause in the English Civil War and was not returned to Parliament after the English Restoration. Political life Gurdon was the son of a country gentleman, Brampton Gurdon, with estates at Letton, Norfolk, and Assington, Suffolk. He was elected to the Short Parliament and then the Long Parliament in 1640 for Ipswich. During the Civil War, he supported the Parliamentarians. Later, when internal dissension broke out among them, he supported the Army party. He remained in the House of Commons after Pride's Purge, but when named one of the Commissioners for the trial of Charles I of England, he refused to attend. Even so, he was chosen as a member of the council of State in 1650, 1651 and 1652. After the expulsion of the Long Parliament, Gurdon sat for Suffolk in the First Protectorate Parliament (1654) and for Sudbury in the Convention Parliament of 1660. He was not re-elected after the Restoration.