Sir Gilbert Dolben, 1st Baronet (1658-1722), of Finedon, Northamptonshire, was an English lawyer, landowner and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1685 and 1715. He also served as a High Court judge in Ireland for many years. He was the grandfather of the leading anti-slavery campaigner Sir William Dolben. Background Dolben was the elder son of John Dolben, Archbishop of York, and his wife Catherine Sheldon, daughter of Ralph Sheldon of Stanton, Staffordshire. His background was strongly episcopal: he was a grand-nephew of Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury and a more remote connection of John Williams, Archbishop of York. His uncle Sir William Dolben was a distinguished judge. He was the elder brother of John Dolben, who had a similar but much less successful career as a barrister and politician. Samuel Pepys, who saw him as a child, described him as "a very pretty boy, and very like his father in appearance". He went to Westminster School and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford on 18 July 1674, aged 15, but did not take a degree. He entered the Inner Temple in 1674, and was called to the Bar in 1680. For a short time, he pursued a career in diplomacy, but decided on a full-time legal practice. He was slow to build up his practice, something about which he grumbled a good deal, but did not suffer financially as he had married an heiress. Politician Dolben was appointed Justice of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1684. He first entered Parliament at the 1685 English general election when returned unopposed as MP for Ripon on his father's interest. He was active in Parliament, and was appointed to 14 committees, many of them church-related, including those for preventing clandestine marriages, for rebuilding St Paul's Cathedral, for repairing Bangor Cathedral and for naturalizing Protestant refugees. He was appointed Justice of the Peace for Northamptonshire in 1686. In 1688, he returned negative answers on the repeal of the Test Act and the Penal Laws and was dismissed from the Commission of the Peace. Although he was nominally a Tory in politics, he supported the Glorious Revolution and was subsequently restored to his offices. At the 1689 English general election he was returned unopposed as MP for Peterborough, probably in the interest of the dean and chapter of Peterborough Cathedral. He was very busy