John Sparke

John Sparke (1636 – 8 October 1680) of the Friary, in the parish of St Jude, Plymouth, Devon, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1677 to 1680. Origins Sparke was the son of Jonathan Sparke of Plymouth (second son of John Sparke (c 1574–1640), MP, of The Friary, in the parish of St Jude, Plymouth) by his wife Mary Basset, daughter of Sir Robert Basset of Heanton Punchardon. Jonathan Sparke is mentioned in the Travel Journal of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1642-1723) who was visiting Plymouth on 5 April 1669: "On the 5th of the same month Sir Jonathan Spark came to pay his respects to the serene prince, accompanied by his son. This gentleman is an inhabitant of Plymouth, in the neighbourhood of which he possesses an estate of a thousand pounds a year; consequently he is considered the principal person of the place". Residence The Sparke family's residence in Plymouth was the former Whitefriars Abbey, in the parish of St Jude, which after the Dissolution of the Monasteries was probably acquired by Giles and Gregory Iselham, who obtained possession of other ecclesiastical property in Plymouth. It was then acquired by the Sparke family, who made it their residence. From Sparke it passed to the Molesworths and Clarkes to the Beweses. The buildings were converted into a hospital for soldiers in the year 1794, when a deadly sickness was ravaging the troops detained at the port for the West India expedition. They were subsequently used as an infirmary for the troops stationed at Millbay and Frankfort Barracks. Parts were used as dwellings, but Friary Court was thenceforth never considered a fashionable address. By 1890 all had disappeared and the bulk of the site was occupied by the Friary Railway Station, now closed, of the London and South Western Railway, with another part occupied by the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross.