Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (1618 – 29 July 1684) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1679. Dunster was the son of Giles Dunster, yeoman, of Seavington St. Michael, Somerset and was baptised on 6 September 1618. He was apprenticed to a grocer in London in 1636, and became a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Grocers in 1644. He does not appear to have taken part in the Civil War. By 1652 he owned 52 acres in Ilchester and was elected to the corporation. In 1660, he was elected
Dunster Castle with a supply of venison as well as generating income. During the 15th century, England was divided by the prolonged period of civil war called the Wars of the Roses: the Luttrells were supporters of the House of Lancaster. In 1461, Sir James Luttrell died following the Lancastrian defeat at the Second Battle of St Albans, and his family were deprived of their estates by the Yorkist Edward IV. The castle was given to the Herberts, but the Luttrells regained it on the accession of the Lancastarian Henry VII in 1485, when Dunster was restored to James' son, Sir Hugh