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Out-Ranger of Windsor Forest


The Out-Ranger of Windsor Forest was an official post associated with the royal forest of Windsor.

The nominal duties of the out-ranger were to preserve any deer which escaped the bounds of Windsor Forest. (Under forest law, the Sovereign owned all the deer within a royal forest, even though they might not be crown property.) In practice, the office was a sinecure.

The first known appointment to the position was that of Denzil Onslow in 1686 or 1694. He was deprived of his office in 1711 when the Junto Whigs were crushed. In 1715, the office was granted to Denzil's great-nephew Hon. Thomas Onslow. While it provided an emolument for him, the principal purpose of the appointment was to force Thomas to vacate his seat as Member of Parliament for Guildford, under the terms of the Place Act 1707. By removing him from the House of Commons, he could now stand in the by-election for Surrey, which had been vacated when his father Richard was made a Teller of the Exchequer. (Richard was about to be made a peer, hence his failure to stand in the by-election himself.) Two years later, when Thomas succeeded to his father's barony, Denzil Onslow again received the office for the same reason, vacating his seat at Guildford to successfully contest Surrey. This presaged the use of other offices of profit under the Crown as a means of resignation from the British House of Commons, which became formalised in the offices of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds and Steward of Northstead.


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