Squire Bence was an English merchant, seafarer and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England

House of Commons of England

The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...

  from 1640 to 1648.

Bence was the son of Alexander Bence and his wife Marie Squier daughter of Thomas Squier. He was a merchant and shipowner who undertook trading expeditions by sea. Bence Island

Bunce Island

Bunce Island is the site of an 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa....

 in the estury of the Sierra Leone River was named after him. In the 1620's he is recorded as raiding an Algerian ship and removing Christian slaves and prisoners from it.

In April 1640, Bence was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh (UK Parliament constituency)

Aldeburgh was a parliamentary borough represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and its predecessor bodies.The town was enfranchised in 1571 as a borough constituency...

 in the Short Parliament

Short Parliament

The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....

. He was re-elected in 1642 as MP for Aldeburgh when he joined his brother Alexander Bence

Alexander Bence

Alexander Bence was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1640 to 1648 and in 1654...

 in the Long Parliament

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

. He sat until his death in 1648. In 1642 he was appointed by parliament as one of the Commissioners for the Affairs of (His Majesty's) Navy, the King having prevented all his principal officers of the navy from performing their duties.

Bence died aged 51 years, 6 months and 12 days at Thorington

Thorington

Thorington is a village and a civil parish in the in the hundred of Blything, in the Suffolk Coastal District, in the English county of Suffolk. For transport there is the A12 road nearby. Nearby settlements include the town of Halesworth and the villages of Wenhaston and Blackheath...

Suffolk although he is also commemorated on the family monument at Aldeburgh.

Bence married Elizabeth Pett on 26 August 1617 at St. Dunstan, Stepney, London. His second wife was Mary.