BURRIDGE, John (?1681-1753), of London and Lyme Regis, Dorset.

John Burridge came from a family of Lyme Regis merchants, who provided ten mayors for the borough between 1656 and 1726. His uncle John Burridge represented Lyme Regis in six Parliaments, 1689-95 and 1701-10. By 1706 Burridge had become a merchant and shipowner in London, trading to Guinea and the West Indies.LJ, xviii. 390. Succeeding his uncle at Lyme Regis in 1710, he voted with the Administration in all recorded divisions of the 1715 Parliament. In 1717 his estate was seized by the Crown on a debt of £2,600 for wine duties, of which he had paid off over £1,000 by November, hoping to pay the rest in 8 or 10 months.Cal. Treas. Bks. pp. 686, 709. He is mentioned in the 6th report of the South Sea inquiry as having accepted £2,000 stock from the Company on 17 Mar. 1720 without paying for it. At the 1722 election he was returned by his father, the mayor. During his own mayoralty in 1727, he returned himself at the general election, contrary to the resolution of the House of Commons on 2 June 1685 forbidding this practice,CJ, xix. 569; xxi. 35. for which he was unseated on petition. On 15 Aug. 1730 he applied to Walpole for further assistance from the secret service funds:

Having really spent a fortune for his Majesty and the succession of his family ... I beg you will represent my conduct and attendance in Parliament for near twenty years — my uncle and I having served in Parliament ever since the Revolution and I believe as much from such a principle as ever ... I have for near twenty years received but £2,150 — and nothing this five or six years past ... I trust ... [the King] will be induced to serve me in this difficulty and necessity.Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss.

He was heavily defeated when he stood again in 1734. In 1746 he petitioned George II in extravagant language, saying that in 1731 Walpole had promised him a further ‘secret £1,000’, which had not been paid.Add. 32707, f.405. He died 2 Feb. 1753.