Thomas Coventry (died 1797)

Thomas Coventry (c. 1713–1797) was a British lawyer, financier and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1754 and 1780.

He was born about 1713, the son of Thomas Coventry, a Russia merchant and the brother of William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry, and his wife Mary Green of Hambleton, Buckinghamshire. Coventry was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1728,^[1] entered the Inner Temple in 1732 and was called to the bar in 1735.

In 1751 Coventry became a Director of the South Sea Company.^[2] In 1754 he was returned as Member of Parliament for Bridport and was returned again in 1761. He became bencher of Inner Temple in 1766, and deputy governor of the South Sea Company in 1768. In 1768, he was re-elected MP for Bridport. In 1771 he became sub-governor of the South Sea Company, retaining the post until 1794. He was returned again to represent Bridport in 1774. In 1777 he became reader and in 1778 treasurer of Inner Temple.^[2]

In 1778 he also succeeded to the North Cray estate of his friend and kinsman Rev. William Hetherington ^[2] where around 1780 he hired Capability Brown to landscape the parkland.^[3]

Coventry died at his house in Sergeants Inn on 21 May 1797 and was buried at Temple Church.^[1] He had married Margaret Savage, daughter of Thomas Savage of Elmley Castle, Worcestershire in 1743 but left no children. He willed all his assets to his godson the Hon. Thomas William Coventry (1778-1816), the youngest son of 6th Earl of Coventry.

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