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Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet

British Baronet

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ7529778 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet (May 1642 – 30 April 1684) was an English Whig politician who was a Member of Parliament for Suffolk from 1679 until his death in 1684.

Early life

Spring was the son of Sir William Spring, 1st Baronet and Elizabeth L'Estrange, daughter of Alice L'Estrange and Sir Hamon le Strange. He was educated at King Edward VI School and Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1658. In 1654 he inherited his father's baronetcy.

Career

In 1661, Spring was appointed a commissioner for assessment for Suffolk. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1664, but was removed from the Commission of the Peace for Suffolk in 1670 for opposing the Conventicle Act 1664. He served as High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1674. He contested the Sudbury constituency in 1679, but lost. He was subsequently elected to represent Suffolk in both the second and third Exclusion Parliaments as an exclusionist. The Earl of Shaftesbury classed him as an "honest" opponent of James, Duke of York inheriting the throne.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet” is british Baronet. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Spring and Baronet, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1642, 1684, 1679, 1658—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1642-05, 1642-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, William, Spring and Baronet is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british Baronet” 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.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7529778. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1642, 1684, 1679 and 1658.

Critical limits

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet” 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.