Edmund Prideaux
1601–1659
Attorney General to the Commonwealth; Postmaster of the Inland Letter Office.
Biography
Of Cambridge then Inner Temple, Prideaux was a long-serving MP for Lyme Regis. As Postmaster of the Inland Letter Office from 1644 he reformed the English postal system, establishing the network of weekly cross-posts (London to Edinburgh, London to Dublin, London to Plymouth) that underlies the modern Royal Mail; the office became immensely lucrative. He was made Solicitor General in 1648 and Attorney General to the Commonwealth in 1649. A senior lay assessor at the Assembly, he died in August 1659, six months before the Restoration.
Lay Assessor — House of Commons
Parliament seated lay assessors alongside the divines to represent its interest and keep it informed of the Assembly's progress. The ordinance of 1643 named thirty members of the House of Commons as assessors; they could take part in debate but were not among the voting divines, and their attendance was often occasional as the war and parliamentary business pressed on them.