Samuel Tufnell

Samuel Tufnell (15 September 1682 – 1758), of Langleys, Essex, was a British lawyer and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1715 and 1747. Early life Tufnell was the son of John Tufnell, brewer, of St Mary's Undershaft, London, and Monken Hadley, Middlesex, and his wife Elizabeth Jolliffe, daughter of John Jolliffe, MP, merchant and alderman of London. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford in 1698. On the death of his father in 1699, he succeeded to the family estate, under the trusteeship of his uncles, Sir William Jolliffe and Sir Edward Northey. He was admitted to Middle Temple in 1699 and called to the bar in 1703. He undertook a Grand Tour through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Switzerland from 1703 to 1705. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1709 In 1710 he purchased the manor of Langleys, at Great Waltham, not far from Maldon and in 1719, built a fine red brick house on an H-shaped plan which incorporated the north wing of an earlier house from about 1620. He was captain of a troop of Essex militia in 1715. He married (with £10,000) Elizabeth Cressener, daughter of George Cressener of Earl's Colne, Essex on 19 December 1717. Career Tufnell stood with Sir William Jolliffe as a Whig candidate for Maldon at the 1715 British general election, and was returned as Member of Parliament on petition on 20 May 1715. He spoke in support of the septennial bill in 1716.