Peter Holford
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Peter Holford (c.1720–1804)[1] was an English barrister. He was a master in chancery from 1750 and a Fellow of the Royal Society.[2]
He was the eldest son of Robert Holford (1686–1753) and his wife Sarah Vandeput, and grandson of Sir Richard Holford, master in chancery, and his second wife Elizabeth Stayner, daughter of Sir Richard Stayner RN.[1][3][4]
The Holfords were chancery lawyers and landowners. Sir Richard Holford (died 1719) left an estate valued at £47,000.[5] He was married three times, and had sons by each marriage. He bought the manor of Avebury from the heirs of John Stawell, 2nd Baron Stawell, who died in 1692. It went to Samuel, son of his third wife Susanna Trotman. On his death in 1730 it went to Richard, son of Sir Richard's son by his first marriage, to Sarah Crew(e), who died in 1742. It passed on to his brother Staynor Holford, who died in 1767. It then was bequeathed out of the Holford family.[6] Robert Holford took advantage of the situation in 1742 to acquire from Richard the younger a farm at Beckhampton in lieu of a debt repayment. Distrust remained in the family.[7]
John Habakkuk, citing the Holfords as an example, wrote:
Where the main line of a family in successive generations combined estate ownership with an active and remunerative career, a landed family could become very wealthy because of the opportunities of gain enjoyed [...][8]
The Westonbirt estate in Gloucestershire, a significant legacy of the Holford family, was an acquisition at the time of Sir Richard's first marriage.[5] Westonbirt village was the scene in 1716 of a rough music incident that was homophobic, but also anti-clerical and directed against Holford as lord of the manor.[9] Robert Holford continued his father's enclosure of land there in the 18th century.[10]