Portrait of John Burridge Cholwich (unsuccessfully contested Exeter by-election)

John Burridge Cholwich, squire of Farringdon in Devon, was born c.1752. He was the son of John Cholwich, who died when his son was a minor. His grandfather, also called John, died in 1767 when John Burridge was fifteen years old, leaving him the Farringdon estate. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. In February 1777 John Burridge Cholwich married Frances, daughter of Sir John Duntze, Bart., M.P. for Tiverton.

John Burridge Cholwich stood for Parliament as a candidate for Exeter on three occasions between 1776-80. His opponent in his unsuccessful 1776 by-election was John Baring (1730-1816), the influential merchant banker. Baring’s dislike of Cholwich’s father-in-law, Sir John Duntze, M.P. was intense.