JEFFERY, John (c.1591-bef. 1630), of Catherston-Leweston, Dorset.

Jeffery attended Oxford and the Inner Temple with his elder brother George, though neither of them pursued a career in the law. At his father’s death in 1611 he received an annuity of £40, but the will expressed disappointment that ‘my son John doth not behave himself as he ought’. He was promised a further £500 to be paid by his hard-pressed elder brother on condition that he ‘turn himself from the lewd course he takes and make him an honest man’. PROB 11/118, f. 8; F. Brown, Som. Wills, v. 61. Perhaps in an endeavour to prove himself worthy of the legacy, Jeffery stood successfully for a seat at Bridport in 1614, but he left no trace of his presence in the records of the Addled Parliament. He had presumably died or disappeared before 1630, when his mother died, since he is not mentioned in her will. PROB 11/158, ff. 87v-88.