suc. 2nd. cos. 27 Sept. 1712 as 5th Bar. DORMER
Never sat.
b. 22 Apr. 1668, s. of Charles Dormer (d. 1651) of Peterley, Bucks. and Mary Cellier. educ. privately. m. (1) Catherine, da. and coh. of Sir Edmund Fettiplace, bt. of Swincombe, Oxon. 2s.; (2) 7 June 1694, Elizabeth, da. of Richard Biddulph of Biddulph, Staffs. 7s. (1 d.v.p.), 5da.1 d. 2 July 1728; will 15 Sept. 1726, pr. 6 Nov. 1728.2
Associated with: Peterley, Gt. Missenden, Bucks.; Idsworth, Hants.
As a Roman Catholic (the Dormers’ Catholicism had been noted in a 1678 recusancy return and a 1706 episcopal visitation), Dormer was disabled from taking his seat in the House of Lords.3 A cadet branch of the family, the Dormers of Lee Grange, sent two members to the Commons: Robert‡ and Fleetwood Dormer‡, but there is no indication that he had any influence over them.
During his lifetime, Dormer added to his family estates in Buckinghamshire when he acquired property in Hughenden as a legatee of Thomas Gregory.4 He also held property in Hampshire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, acquiring the manor of Swincombe when he married into the armigerous Fettiplace family.5 He died on 2 July 1728 in London’s Drury Lane and was buried at Great Missenden. At least four of his sons became Jesuit priests, including his son and heir, Charles† (from his first marriage), who entered the novitiate in September 1709.
B.A./R.P.- 1 Collins, Peerage (1812), vii. 74.
- 2 TNA, PROB 11/625.
- 3 VCH Bucks. i. 334; Bucks Dissent and Parish Life 1669-1712 ed. J. Broad (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xxviii), 236, 239, 253.
- 4 VCH Bucks. iii. 60, 94–95; ii. 265, 350.
- 5 VCH Hants. iii. 106; VCH Warws. iii. 66–68; Vis. Oxon 1669 and 1675, ed. Squibbe, 7.