Philip Meadows 1672-1757

Sir Philip MEADOWS or MEADOWES 1672-1757

Biographical Note

Son of Sir Philip Meadows and Constance Lucy. Married Dorothy Boscawen. MP for Tregony 1698-1700, 1705-8 and for Truro 1702-5. Amongst other posts, he was knight marshal of the king’s household and marshal of the Marshalsea in 1700, ambassador to Holland in 1704, special envoy to Vienna 1706-9, and comptroller of the army accounts from 1708. He was knighted in 1702.

The bookplate noticed below has been taken to be his, but might instead have been that of his diplomat father, who was active as a commissioner for trade in the year it is dated.

Books

Either Meadows or his father used an engraved armorial bookplate dated 1704 (‘Sr. Philip Meadows, Knight.’): Franks *261.

The content and the disposition of his (and his father’s) library are not established.

Sources

• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903-4.
• History of Parliament.
• Venning, Timothy. ‘Meadows, Sir Philip (1662?–1757), diplomat and politician’ in ‘Meadows, Sir Philip (bap. 1626, d. 1718), diplomat’. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.