John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington

On the recommendation of Lord Somers he was employed to encourage the Presbyterians in Scotland to support the union of the two kingdoms, and in 1708 he was rewarded for this service by being appointed to the office of commissioner of the customs.

One was left by a distant family connection, Francis Barrington of Tofts, whose name he assumed by act of parliament in 1710,[3] and the other by an admirer John Wildman of Beckett Hall at Shrivenham, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire).

[1][2] At the 1715 general election Barrington was returned unopposed as Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed with another dissenter Grey Neville.

[1] Barrington had become sub-governor of the Harburg Company, which was founded to conduct trade between Great Britain and Hanover.

[2] In 1725, Barrington published his principal work, entitled Miscellanea Sacra or a New Method of considering so much of the History of the Apostles as is contained in Scripture,—afterwards reprinted with additions and corrections, in 1770, by his son Shute.