James Chase (apothecary)
English apothecary and member of parliament
James Chase (c. 1650 – 23 June 1721), of Westhorpe House, Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire. was an English apothecary and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1690 to 1710. From 1690 he was Court apothecary to King William III, Queen Anne and King George I.
Early life
Chase was the eldest son of John Chase of Littlebrook, Kent and his wife Elizabeth Soane, daughter of Dr Thomas Soane, canon of Windsor. His father was court apothecary to Charles II, and James II, having succeeded his own father in 1666, who was court apothecary to Charles I and, after the Restoration, to Charles II. Chase matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford on 15 December 1665, aged 15. He married Elizabeth Box, daughter of Sir Ralph Box of Cheapside, London on 17 November 1677. In 1684, he acquired his estate in Little Marlow and built Westhorpe House there during Queen Anne's reign.
Court apothecary
Chase was a Freeman of the Apothecaries’ Company and was its Master from June 1688 to September 1689. His father's patent granted the reversion of the office to Chase himself, and after his father's death in 1690, Chase became court apothecary to William III in June 1690, at an annual salary of £115, with an annual allowance of £127 and lodgings in Whitehall. He was subsequently court apothecary to Queen Anne and King George I.
Political career
At the 1690 English general election Chase was returned as Member of Parliament for Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James Chase (apothecary)” is english apothecary and member of parliament. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Chase and apothecary, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “english apothecary and member of parliament” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16826363. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1650, 1721, 1690 and 1710.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “James Chase (apothecary)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow James Chase (apothecary) primary sources, James Chase (apothecary) archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James Chase (apothecary)”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “James Chase (apothecary)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.