BUTCHER, Francis (1616-66), of Canterbury, Kent.

Like many of those returned for Canterbury during the civil wars and interregnum, Butcher could boast only relatively humble origins, and it was this, together with his youth, which ensured that before the late 1640s he played little part in public affairs. Born in 1616, he was the second son of a minor Kentish gentleman, John Butcher of Adisham. Obliged to pursue a trade, Butcher undertook an apprenticeship with one of the leading aldermen of Canterbury, John Lade, and was made free of the city in August 1639.15Canterbury Cathedral Archives, A/C4, f. 147. His business fortunes were no doubt improved by the bequest of £500 received shortly thereafter upon the death of his father.16Canterbury Cathedral Archives, PRC32/52, f. 85. They may or may not have been improved further upon his marriage, in the week that the Long Parliament assembled in November 1640, to a daughter of Dr Richard Clerke, an eminent local clergyman who had been one of the translators of the Authorised Version of the Bible and one of the ‘six preachers’ at Canterbury.17‘Richard Clerke’, Oxford DNB. Since Clerke’s death in 1634, Butcher’s wife had been under the guardianship of Sir James Oxinden, one of the leading figures in the county gentry, and a prominent parliamentarian in the 1640s.18Canterbury Mar. Licences, 1619-1660, 167; Canterbury Cathedral Archives, PRC17/72, f. 212v; PRC32/50, f. 322.

Little is known about Butcher during the first civil war, other than that he served as churchwarden of his native parish in 1642.19Adisham par reg. By the time of the Kentish rising of 1648, however, he was a captain of auxiliaries under Sir Michael Livesay*, one of the most powerful and controversial figures in local politics at that time.20SP28/130iv, f. 25. Butcher’s martial service seems to have been driven by his religious zeal, and it is in this period that he emerged as a member of one of the two Congregational churches in Canterbury. His church was distinct from, but closely linked with, that led by John Durant, and its preacher was John Player.21G.F. Nuttall, ‘Dissenting churches in Kent before 1700’, JEH xiv. 180, 182; Calamy Revised, 392. Indeed, in the spring of 1647, the minute book of the Durant congregation noted the attendance of Butcher, together with two other ‘brethren of, and messengers from, our sister church in Canterbury’, who had been delegated to seek the advice, assistance and prayers of their more established neighbours, regarding the choice of church officers.22Canterbury Cathedral Archives, U37, f. 11. Butcher was also involved in discussions within the Durant congregation later in the same year, over the ejection of one of its ‘disorderly’ members, although Butcher advocated gentle treatment on the grounds that ‘Brother Buckhurst’ had behaved out of genuine scruples.23Canterbury Cathedral Archives, U37, f. 11v.

Butcher’s religious radicalism presumably lay behind his support for the republic. During the early 1650s he began to participate in local administration for the first time, as an assessment commissioner. He may also have benefitted from the sale of church property, since by 1650 he was living in the cathedral precincts, in the former house of Dr Humphrey Peake, canon of Canterbury, albeit this was leased rather than purchased.24C. Eveleigh Woodruff, ‘Parlty. survey of the precincts of Canterbury Cath.’, Arch. Cant. xlix. 198, 219, 222. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was during the Nominated Assembly in 1653 that Butcher was added to the commission of the peace.25C231/6, p. 269. Butcher’s growing local importance may have influenced his election as one of the two Members for Canterbury in the first protectorate Parliament in 1654. That the seat was hotly contested appears evident from the fact that a number of prominent local individuals, both civilian and military, were made free of the borough immediately before the election, yet Butcher was chosen alongside Thomas Scot III*, and ahead of men like Henry Oxinden*, Thomas St Nicholas*, Robert Gibbon*, Sir Michael Livesay and John Dixwell*.26Canterbury Cathedral Archives, A/C4, ff. 370v-1.

Butcher played no recorded part in parliamentary proceedings, however, and thereafter he was much less prominent in the local administration. He was removed from the commission of the peace as part of a local purge in March 1656, although he remained a member of the assessments commission, and was appointed to the militia commission during the restored Rump in 1659.27C231/6, p. 328. After the Restoration, Butcher’s name disappears from the public record. Although it is unclear whether he remained an active Congregationalist, he certainly continued to live in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral, where he resided when his will was proved in September 1666.28Canterbury Cathedral Archives, PRC17/72, f. 212v.