William Archer (néEyre) (4 June 1677 – 30 June 1739), of
Coopersale, in
Theydon Garnon, Essex, and
Welford Park, Berkshire, was an English lawyer and Tory politician who sat in the
House of Commons from 1734 to 1739.
Archer was extremely wealthy. In addition to his own family's wealth, in 1706, he inherited the estates of Sir
John Archer at Coopersale, Essex and Welford Park,
Berkshire, on condition that he marry Archer's niece, Eleanor Wrottesley, daughter of
Sir Walter Wrottesley, 3rd Baronet and assume the name Archer. They married, but had no children before Eleanora died on 2 May 1717.[5]
After his first wife's death, he married, as his second wife, Susanna Newton, the only daughter of
Sir John Newton, 3rd Baronet, of
Barrs Court. Through this marriage, his second son inherited further estates from Susanna's brother,
Sir Michael Newton, 4th Baronet, who died childless in 1743.[4] Together they were the parents of:[6]
Catherine Archer (
c. 1728–1810), who married Philip Blundell.[10]
Susanna Archer (
c. 1729–1804), who married
Edward Harley, 4th Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer in 1751; at the time of her marriage, her inheritance was worth £50,000 (equivalent to £9,923,407 in 2023).[4][11] She succeeded to the estates of her brother Michael in 1803.[10]
Archer died on 30 June 1739, aged 59.[12] His widow died 28 January 1761.[10]
Descendants
Through his eldest son John, his only child to have issue, he was a grandfather of two: Susannah (née Archer) Houblon (who, in 1770, married the merchant Jacob Houblon of
Hallingbury Place, a son of
Jacob Houblon, MP, and grandson of
Sir John Hynde Cotton, 3rd Baronet, MP and
Treasurer of the Chamber)[b] and Charlotte (née Archer) Piggott (wife of Gillery Pigott, a first cousin once removed of the Hon. Sir
Gillery Pigott).[13]
^Archer's granddaughter, Susannah (née Archer) Houblon, took the surname Newton after the death of her husband to inherit the Newton estates from her aunt, the
dowagerCountess of Oxford (who died without issue in 1804).[10] Her son,
John Archer-Houblon, MP for
Essex, succeeded his maternal grandfather, John Archer, in 1800, inheriting
Welford Park and took the additional name of Archer by Royal Licence in 1801. He was the father of ten sons and three daughters and the grandfather of the Rev.
Thomas Archer Houblon,
Archdeacon of Oxford.[10]
^Sir Bernard Burke, C.B. LL.D., A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, new edition (1883; reprint,
Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1978), page 206.