Researching John Venn

Venn was born in Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset, England, in 1586 and was an apprentice in the Merchant Taylors' Company before becoming a wool and silk merchant. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Company.

In September 1640, as one of the leaders of the Puritan militants, he sent a petition to King Charles demanding religious reform. Together with Isaac Penington, he demanded the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford.

In 1641, Venn was elected Member of Parliament for City of London in the Long Parliament. In 1642, he fought in the army of the Earl of Essex, and following the battle of Edgehill was appointed governor of Windsor Castle, a position he retained until 1645.

When the pro-Royalist Presbyterian mobs of London seized Westminster, he did not join the pro-Army Independent MPs in seeking asylum with the Army. He would be one of the few to change sides over the next year and a half, and come to support the army against King Charles.

In January 1649, as a commissioner of the High Court of Justice at the trial of King Charles, he was 53rd of the 59 signatories on the death warrant of the King. He died in 1650 before the Restoration in 1660 when many of his fellow signatories were imprisoned or executed.

Venn was educated at Eastbourne College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his honours in the History Tripos in 1904-1905. During the First World War he was a lieutenant for three years in the Cambridgeshire Regiment and then served as a statistician in the Food Production Department. He served on the Scientific Council of the International Institute of Agriculture and many other Departmental committees of the Ministry of Agriculture. Venn was elected a Fellow in 1927 and had been a Junior Fellow and Bursar at Queens' before being elected President on the death of Thomas Cecil Fitzpatrick in 1932. At the time he was the youngest Head of a College in Cambridge. He was also the Gilbey Lecturer in Agriculture.