John Asgill

John Asgill
Born	25 March 1659
Died	10 November 1738 (aged 79)
Occupation	lawyer, politician, pamphleteer
Notable work	An Argument Proving, that … Man may be Translated

John Asgill (25 March 1659 – 10 November 1738) was an eccentric English writer and politician.

Life

He studied law at the Middle Temple, 1686, and was called to the bar in 1692. He founded the first land bank in 1695 with Nicholas Barbon, which, after proving to be a profitable venture, merged with the land bank of John Briscoe in 1696. However, after profits dropped, the bank closed in 1699. He was then elected that year as Member of Parliament for Bramber.^[1]

In 1700 Asgill had published An Argument Proving, that … Man may be Translated, a pamphlet aiming to prove that death was not obligatory upon Christians, which, much to his surprise, caused a public outcry and led to his expulsion from the Irish House of Commons in 1703, only a short time after he had stood successfully for Enniscorthy. He fell on hard times, and passed the rest of his life between the Fleet prison and the King's Bench, but his zeal as a pamphleteer continued unabated.

References

Cousin, John William (1910). " Asgill, John". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource 

Notes

1. Greaves, Richard L. "Asgill, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/734. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.). The first edition of this text is available as an article on Wikisource:  "Asgill, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Further Reading

Entry at History of Parliament Online

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource