HELYAR, William (1662-1742), of East Coker, nr. Ilchester, Som.

Helyar was descended from an old Devonshire family, long settled in Somerset, where they had bought the manor of East Coker in 1616. In spite of being heavily fined for royalist activities in the civil war, his father was able to leave him not merely the family property in Somerset and Devonshire, but the lease of a plantation in Jamaica.CSP Col. 1669-74, pp. 561, 591; PCC 284 Pyne. Returned for Ilchester in the Convention Parliament, Helyar did not sit again till 1715, when he successfully contested his county as a Tory. He voted against the Government in all the recorded divisions except that on the septennial bill in 1716, from which he was absent. He did not stand again, being buried 8 Oct. 1742.