TOPHAM, Christopher (d. 1671), of Holy Trinity, Micklegate, York, Yorks.

Topham’s background and parentage are obscure. He was probably one of two men named Christopher Topham who were made freemen of York, both as merchants, in 1624 and 1627.14York Freemen ed. Collins, 74, 76. But he should not be confused with the York merchant Christopher Topham – a younger brother of Alderman Matthew Topham of York – who died in 1625, and nor with the Christopher Topham of St Martin, Micklegate, who died in 1640.15York City Lib. Skaife mss, SKA/3, ff. 774-5; T. Burton, Hist. and Antiquities of Hemingbrough, 224-5. The Christopher Topham who died in 1625, referred in his will to ‘my servant Chr[istopher] Tophan [sic] now beyond seas’, and this may well have been the future MP.16Borthwick Institute, York, Prob. Reg. 39, f. 300v. Topham was described in 1645 by his brother Matthew, a merchant of Hull, as living in the Polish port of Danzig (modern day Gdansk), where he had resided for the past 15 years (speaking in the Commons in 1659, Topham informed the House that he had ‘lived in the eastern parts [of Europe] thirty years’, and he referred knowledgeably to the trade between Moscow and the ‘ports of Poland’).17Yorks. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. J.W. Clay (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. xv), 143; York City Lib. Skaife mss, SKA/3, f. 775; Burton’s Diary, iii. 437, 472. Christopher and Matthew were partners in a mercantile business that stretched across the North Sea into the Baltic.

Matthew Topham sided with the king’s party during the civil war, moving from Hull when it became a parliamentarian garrison in 1642 to the royalist stronghold of York.18Yorks. Royalist Composition Pprs. ed. Clay, 143-5. But Christopher, who had returned to England by 1647, apparently harboured no such royalist sympathies, rising rapidly in the corporation of York after the parliamentarian interest had seized control of the city in 1644-5.19Wilson, ‘York’, 262, 264. He was elected to the aldermanic bench in 1650, just two years after serving as sheriff of the city, and became an active member of the York branch of the committee of the Northern Association.20York City Archives, Y/ORD/4/2, E/63, f. 127v and passim.

Topham and another senior municipal office-holder were sent to London by the corporation in the autumn of 1656 to solicit the city’s business at Westminster.21York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, ff. 91, 96v. And in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, Topham was returned for York – undoubtedly on the corporation interest. He received no committee appointments and delivered only two recorded speeches in the House – both made during the debates in February concerning the government’s proposal to send a fleet to the Baltic to support Sweden against Denmark and its Dutch allies. He accused the Danish crown of dealing treacherously with English merchants using The Sound, and he advised the House that ‘nothing under Heaven concerns the English so much as that channel. Let us plant our ships in time there and we have advantage enough of the Hollander ... My motion is that you presently join your assistance to Sweden’ (23 Feb.).22Burton’s Diary, iii. 437-8; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, p. 150; W.A.H. Schilling, ‘The Parliamentary Diary of Sir John Gell, 5 Feb.-21 Mar. 1659’ (Vanderbilt Univ. MA thesis, 1961), 107-8. On 24 February, he moved that the Commons refer ‘the care of guarding the seas’ to the protector, ‘and that two Members of the House be joined in a committee to go along with the admiral, to see there be no rash engagement’.23Burton’s Diary, iii. 472; Wilts. RO, 9/34/3, pp. 146-7.

Having condoned the use of violence against Quaker evangelists during the mid-1650s, Topham encouraged the persecution of Friends in York that followed the arrival of General George Monck* in the city in January 1660 and his own appointment that month as lord mayor.24D.A. Scott, ‘Politics and Dissent and Quakerism in York, 1640-1700’ (York Univ. DPhil. thesis, 1990), 29, 46, 54, 55, 57, 58. In February 1660, Topham became the first mayor for ten years to take the oath of office leaving out the words ‘as it is established without king or House of Lords’.25York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 133v. That same month he joined Lord Fairfax (Sir Thomas Fairfax*) and other Yorkshire gentlemen in sending a letter to Monck, enclosing a declaration from the county for a free Parliament.26Eg. 2618, f. 60; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 356; D. Scott, ‘Politics and government in York 1640-62’, in Town and Countryside in the English Revolution ed. R.C. Richardson, 60. On 9 May, the corporation ordered that ‘the king’s arms be set up at Micklegate Bar, in the council chamber, in the Common Hall and on the top of the great mace’, and, two days later, Topham presided over extravagant celebrations in the city at the restoration of monarchy.27York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 139; YPS/1/3, ‘Hammonds diary’, unfol. He was clearly regarded as conformable by the restored monarchy, for he retained his place as alderman during the purge of municipal office-holders by the corporation commissioners in 1662.28York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 177.

Topham died in the winter of 1670-1 and was buried at St George the Martyr, Southwark, on 5 January 1671.29St George the Martyr par. reg. No will is recorded. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.