STEPHENS, Thomas (?1672-1720), of Lypiatt, nr. Stroud, Glos.

Thomas Stephens was descended from the younger branch of an old Gloucestershire family, seated at Lypiatt since the early seventeenth century.Fenwick Metcalfe, Vis. Glos. 1682-3, pp. 176-7; Rudder, Glos. 430-1, 713. Both his father and grandfather had represented Gloucestershire, where the family held extensive property, in addition to land in neighbouring counties. Returned as a Whig under Anne, and re-elected unopposed in 1715, he voted against the septennial bill but for the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts and the peerage bill. He died of smallpox,Hist. Reg. 1738, chron. p. 10. 24 Feb. 1720.