John Ruxton
Irish politician

John William Ruxton (1721 – 7 March 1785) was an Irish landowner and Member of Parliament.
The son of William Ruxton of Ardee in County Louth, John married Laetitia Fitzherbert, eventual heiress of Shercock in County Cavan and Blackcastle in County Meath. He was elected to succeed his father as MP for Ardee in 1751, and sat until 1776. He was then re-elected in October 1783 (along with his younger brother, Charles Ruxton) and sat until his death.
He built Ardee House in 1780. Ardee and Shercock were inherited by the eldest son, William, while Blackcastle was divided between the younger sons John, (who married Margaret Edgeworth, aunt of the novelist Maria Edgeworth) and Samuel. the two parts were later reunited.
“John Ruxton” enters the record as irish politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Ruxton and Irish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“John Ruxton” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, John, Ruxton and Irish provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2022. The linked authority identifier is Q16854129. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1721, 1785, 1751 and 1776.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Ruxton” 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.