Derby

Derby by the Restoration period was ‘a very large, populous, well-frequented and rich borough town – few inland towns equalising it’.1 R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 76. The mainstays of Derby’s economy were its markets and horse fair – which attracted buyers from London and further afield – its role as a county administrative and social centre, and the malting and brewing industries.2 Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR/E/106-7, Derby Fair Bks. 1635-49; HMC Hastings, ii. 128; Blome, Britannia, 77; Glover, Derbys. ii. 449; Anon. Hist. of the Borough of Derby, 72; Beats, ‘Derbys.’, 5. Derby ale was famous nationwide and much in demand.3 Blome, Britannia, 77; Glover, Derbys. ii. 449. The town’s population on the eve of the civil war has been estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000.4 Beats, ‘Derbys.’, 5; D. G. Edwards, ‘Population in Derbys. in the reign of King Charles II’, Derbys. Arch. Jnl. cii. 113. In 1638, the crown granted Derby a new charter by which the old governing body, consisting of two bailiffs and 24 burgesses, was replaced by a corporation comprising ten aldermen – one of whom served annually as mayor – a common council and other municipal officers.5 C66/1909/4; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 155; Blome, Britannia, 76; S. Glover, Hist. of Derby, 5. The town had first sent Members to Parliament in 1295, and by the seventeenth century the franchise was vested in the ‘burgesses’ – that is, the freemen by patrimony or apprenticeship. The corporation controlled admission to the freeman body.6 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5; W. Hutton, Hist. of Derby (1791), 91; Glover, Hist. of Derby, 6, 7. When a poll was taken in the 1645 ‘recruiter’ election, 319 freemen registered their vote.7 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5. The returning officer was the mayor.8 Glover, Hist. of Derby, 7.

The electoral convention at Derby since the Elizabethan period had been for the townsmen to select one MP and the town’s high steward to nominate the other.9 HP Commons 1604-29. By the end of the personal rule of Charles I, however, Derby’s municipal leaders were apparently determined to reserve parliamentary selection entirely to themselves. Early in 1640, as campaigning for seats in the Short Parliament commenced, the townsmen made it clear that they would not countenance the return of Thomas Hobbes, who was a client of the town’s high steward, William Cavendish, 3rd earl of Devonshire.10 HMC Cowper, ii. 251; J. T. Brighton, Royalists and Roundheads in Derbys. (1981), 1. There is no reason to suppose that the people of Derby were aware of Hobbes’s controversial philosophical ideas – their objection to him was almost certainly rooted in a desire to resist interference by his patron. Another of the county’s leading figures, the secretary of state, Sir John Coke†, considered putting forward his younger son Thomas Coke* as a candidate at Derby.11 HMC Cowper, ii. 251. But again, the freemen apparently proved unenthusiastic about gentry interlopers. On election day, 24 March 1640, the town returned its recorder, William Allestrye, and one of the aldermen, Nathaniel Hallowes.12 C219/42/1/79. There is no evidence of a contest.

Allestrye and Hallowes stood for Derby again in the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, but on this occasion they faced stiff competition from two local gentry: Christopher Fulwoode and Thomas Gell*. Although Fulwoode and Gell would take opposite sides in the civil war – Fulwoode for the king, Gell for Parliament – both were lawyers and members of locally influential gentry networks.13 Infra, ‘Thomas Gell’; Glover, Derbys. i. 75. Fulwoode was a cousin of and agent for Sir John Coke, while Gell was the brother of the man who came to dominate Derbyshire during the civil war, Sir John Gell (father of John Gell*).14 HMC Cowper, ii. 251; Beats, ‘Derbys.’, 77; J.R. Dias, ‘Lead, society and politics in Derbys. before the civil war’, MH vi. 51. The rivalry between the two sets of candidates continued until election day itself (19 Oct.), when Fulwoode and Gell demanded a poll but were refused by the mayor, who returned Allestrye and Hallowes.15 Derbys. RO, D258/17/31/8; Return of Members, i. 487; C219/43/1/95. The two defeated candidates petitioned the committee of privileges on the grounds that the mayor’s refusal of a poll was an infringement of the town’s charter. Allestrye and Hallowes seem to have agreed that their election was questionable, for although they apparently took their seats they avoided making any contribution to the House’s proceedings until the committee of privileges had considered the case.16 Derbys. RO, D258/17/31/8; Procs. LP iii. 134.

In mid-December 1640, Allestrye informed Fulwoode that ‘he was so tender of the welfare of the town’ he would yield to any ‘indifferent motion’ in order to preserve the mayor and corporation from legal action and the censure of the House. Hallowes was less conciliatory, but agreed that he would yield to whatever the mayor and aldermen decided. Fulwoode suggested a compromise – he would withhold his allegations of illegal electoral practice and thereby save the mayor from likely imprisonment by the Commons, if Allestrye and Hallowes would not contest the case when it came before the committee of privileges. Fulwoode was hoping that if Allestrye and Hallowes offered no defence of their return the committee would simply endorse himself and Gell as the properly elected Members. What he wished to avoid was another election, fearing that he and Gell had lost ground among the freemen since November. Fulwoode’s patron, the Nottinghamshire peer and future royalist, Philip Stanhope, 1st earl of Chesterfield, sent his servants to the town in an effort to shore up his nominee’s support among the freemen. However, as Fulwoode informed Gell,

the mayor and others, as I hear, have gotten so many common burgesses to subscribe to choose townsmen if a new election happens that I profess we can with no safety promise any assurance to ourselves. Therefore our only course must be to draw it to a friendly conclusion if we can, or else to use all means to make our first election stand.17 Derbys. RO, D258/17/31/8.

The committee of privileges reported the case on 25 March 1641, whereupon the House resolved that a new election be held for the town.18 CJ ii. 113a. Evidently satisfied with this outcome, Allestrye and Hallowes ‘were both contented without any further dispute of the House to depart out of the same’ and to acknowledge their return void.19 Procs. LP iii. 134. In the new election, on 14 April 1641, the two men were returned again, this time apparently without serious opposition.20 C219/43/1/97.

The civil war divided the town’s MPs, with Allestrye ending up in the king’s camp and Hallowes emerging as a leading figure among the Derbyshire parliamentarians. Derby was garrisoned for Parliament by Sir John Gell in the autumn of 1642, and by the end of that year the townsmen had contributed or lent £1,351 in cash and £669 in plate to the parliamentarian war-effort.21 Brighton, Royalists and Roundheads, 10, 77-9. This impressive sum notwithstanding, there is evidence that the town contained a sizeable royalist element.22 Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR/E/1, unfol.; England’s Memorable Accidents (28 Nov.-5 Dec. 1642), 98-9 (E.242.37). In May 1643, it was reported that Gell was considering abandoning the town ‘because he could not be assured that they [the inhabitants] would adhere unto him ... the town being too much replenished with malevolents’.23 Certaine Informations no. 20 (29 May-5 June 1643), 156 (E.105.2). Just a few months earlier, the earl of Chesterfield had boasted that he had ‘a hundred families in that town to take part with him’ for the king.24 Harl. 164, f. 378v. Disabled as a Parliament-man in 1643, Allestrye was removed from his recordership the following year and was replaced by Gell’s brother Thomas. However, it was alleged that Gell had used his position as governor to bully the corporation into choosing his brother, whose appointment was thus resented by some of the townsmen as an infringement of municipal liberties.25 Derbys. RO, D258/12/16, pp. 36-7, 39, 40. Nor did Thomas Gell’s appointment sit well with those among the Derbyshire parliamentarians who thought the Gells had too much power in their hands already. Sir John Gell’s nominal subordinate Major Thomas Sanders* openly declared that Thomas Gell was ‘an unfit [man] for the place [of recorder] ... in respect of his mean estate, want of learning, law and honesty’.26 Derbys. RO, D1232/O/9a-b.

The factional quarrel between Sir John Gell and Sanders that divided the county’s political and military leaders from 1644 would spill over into municipal affairs again the following year, during the recruiter election at Derby to replace Allestrye. The vacant seat was contested by Thomas Gell and one of the town’s aldermen, Robert Mellor. Though ‘a very cordial man to the Parliament’, Mellor was a long-standing opponent of the Gells.27 Derbys. RO, D37 M/RT 200; D258/10/9/45; D258/12/16, pp. 2, 6, 20; D3155/6807-8; Heads of Some Notes of the Citys Scout no. 9 (22 Sept. 1645), 2 (E.302.11). There was a national political dimension to this contest inasmuch as the Gell faction was broadly aligned with the earl of Essex’s Presbyterian interest, while the Gells’ leading opponents in town and county looked to Lord Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) and Sir Thomas Fairfax* – the commander of the New Model army – for support and would emerge as political Independents. Nevertheless, the fact that both Thomas Gell and Mellor had taken up arms for Parliament suggests that the Derby recruiter election was more in the nature of a local power-struggle than a clash over national political issues. The competitors were apparently motivated by personal ambition combined, in the case of Mellor and his supporters, with a desire to preserve municipal autonomy from further encroachment by the Gells.28 Infra, ‘Nathaniel Barton’; ‘Thomas Sanders’; Derbys. RO, D258/12/16, pp. 23, 35. There are also suggestions that the two candidates were involved in a dispute over the administration of a wealthy local estate and that this, too, fuelled their rivalry.29 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/2, 10.

The contest in the Derby recruiter election was triggered by a Commons order of 1 September 1645 for issuing a writ to elect a new Member in Allestrye’s place.30 CJ iv. 259b. The precept was quickly dispatched to the town, but the mayor refused to proceed to election because Sir John Gell had despatched Mellor (a captain in his regiment) and his company to garrison Chatsworth House.31 Add. 28716, ff. 43v-44; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/16, p. 10; Heads of Some Notes of the Citys Scout, 2; J.T. Brighton, ‘Sir John Gell and the Derby cttee.’, Bakewell Hist. Soc. ix. 31. The mayor argued that the absence of Mellor’s company, which included at least 57 freemen, precluded a fair election. Sir John Gell allegedly responded by threatening the townsmen with musketeers and imprisoning ‘divers freemen ... to the great terror of the town’.32 Add. 28716, ff. 43v-44; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/14; D258/9/5/20, p. 6; D258/10/32/14, p. 1; D258/12/16, pp. 19, 23, 35-6, 38-9; D1232/O/59; Brighton, ‘Gell and the Derby cttee.’, 31. With the help of his half-brother Sir John Curzon*, Gell procured a Commons order late in September that the mayor proceed to election immediately, ‘all excuses apart’.33 Infra, ‘Sir John Curzon’; CJ iv. 283a. Unrepentant, the corporation prepared a petition to Parliament justifying the delay; which it stopped short of presenting only after Curzon gave assurances that Gell would forbear to use violent means on election day.34 Add. 28716, ff. 43v-44. This compromise did not stop Gell’s opponents delivering a list of charges against him to the Commons in October, nor Curzon presenting counter-charges.35 Derbys. RO, D1232/O/59; CJ iv. 321b.

By the time the precept was sent down to the town again, in November 1645, the county sheriff was Sir George Gresley, a friend of the Gells, and the new mayor of Derby was Gervase Bennett*, a leading member of the anti-Gell faction among the Derbyshire parliamentarians.36 Infra, ‘Gervase Bennett’. A few days prior to the election, Mellor and his company were part of a force that Sir John Gell and the Derby committee sent to the siege of Newark in accordance with orders from the Committee of Both Kingdoms*, which left only Thomas Gell’s company to guard Derby.37 Add. 28716, f. 44v; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/7, 8, p. 1; D258/9/5/16, pp. 2, 3, 11; D258/9/5/20, p. 5; D258/10/32/14, p. 1; Beats, ‘Derbys.’, 219-20; Brighton, ‘Gell and the Derby cttee.’, 32. In Mellor’s absence, his friends browbeat Thomas Gell’s supporters among the freemen: ‘he that stands for Mr Gell stands for the devil, for he is a worthless man and a man of no trust, and they that give their voice for him do damn themselves and their posterity to the pit of hell’.38 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/1, 2; Brighton, ‘Gell and the Derby cttee.’, 32-3.

The Derby recruiter election was held on 12 November 1645 – two months after the precept had been sent to the town. When Mayor Bennett arrived at the town hall that morning he was reportedly confronted by Sir John Gell and his followers – many of whom were ‘malignants’ according to Alderman John Dallton* – who broke into ‘tumultuous’ cries of ‘a Gell, a Gell’.39 Add. 28716, f. 44v. Not to be outdone by this partisan display, Bennett concluded his reading of the precept with a speech in support of his friend Mellor. ‘I will give my voice for Captain Mellor’, Bennett is alleged to have declared, ‘and it is good for you to do so also, or else it shall be the worse for you if I be the mayor of Derby’. Thomas Gell then tried to have his say, but Bennett allegedly ‘clapped his hand on his [Gell’s] mouth and said he had nothing to do to speak there’.40 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/7, 16, p. 5; D258/10/32/14, p. 2. During the ‘shout’ to determine who had the most voices, it appeared to several observers that the majority of the freemen declared for Thomas Gell, and it is therefore likely that it was Bennett and not Gell (as Dallton claimed) who demanded a poll.41 Add. 28716, f. 45; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, p. 3; D258/9/5/16, pp. 5-6; D258/10/32/14, p. 2.

The poll was taken by the town’s steward together with one of Gell’s tenants and servants, Henry Buxton, and was a more than usually fractious affair.42 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/7, 8, p. 3; D258/12/16, p. 27; Brighton, Royalists and Roundheads, 18. At one point during the poll, when Thomas Gell appeared to be ahead, Bennett allegedly waved his hat out of the town hall window, crying ‘a Mellor, a Mellor’ in an effort to rally his friend’s supporters.43 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, pp. 3-4; D258/9/5/16, p. 6. Sir John Gell, for his part, observed proceedings closely and was alleged to have listed the freemen as they registered their vote, to the ‘great terror’ of some of them.44 Add. 28716, ff. 45, 46v, 48; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/16, p. 4; D258/10/32/14, p. 4; D258/12/16, p. 23; D3287/44/4/6/2; Brighton, ‘Gell and the Derby cttee.’, 33. More seriously, there were allegations of armed intimidation by the Gells – in particular that Thomas Gell’s soldiers had been drawn up in battle-readiness (that is, with their matches lit) in the forecourt of the town hall for the duration of the poll. The Gell faction admitted that Thomas Gell’s company had been ‘drawn into arms’ in the market place, but only when the poll was already well under way and as part of the regular security operations of the garrison.45 Add. 28716, ff. 42v, 45, 46, 47; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/3, 7, 8, p. 3; D258/9/5/13, 14, 16, pp. 3-4, 9-10; D258/9/5/20, p. 5; D3287/44/4/6/2; Brighton, ‘Gell and the Derby cttee.’, 34.

At the conclusion of polling Gell had 170 votes and Mellor 149 – which, given the closeness of the result, is hard to reconcile with the claim that the election was decided by the ‘ruthless exercise of military power’.46 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5, 8, p. 4; D. Underdown, ‘Party management in the recruiter elections, 1645-8’, EHR lxxxiii. 244. Despite Gell’s victory on the poll, Bennett refused to declare him duly elected, exclaiming defiantly ‘that he knew the penalty of the statute [regarding elections], that he was able to pay his fine and would return whom he pleased’.47 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, p. 5; D258/9/5/16, pp. 6-7; D258/9/5/19, 45; D3287/44/4/6/2. According to Buxton, most of the aldermen and chief burgesses were offended at this breach of law and municipal custom, and departed the town hall with Gell, leaving Bennett, a handful of the freemen and some of the anti-Gell faction on the Derbyshire county committee and sub-committee of accounts.48 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, p. 5; D258/9/5/16, p. 7; D258/9/5/20, p. 2; D258/10/32/14, p. 5. There is certainly evidence that at least four committeemen, including Sir Samuel Sleigh*, were present at the election and backed Bennett and Mellor.49 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, pp. 1, 5. Indeed, Sleigh seems to have voted for Mellor – along with 30 or so ‘delinquents’ and non-freemen according to the Gell faction.50 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5, 12; D258/9/5/20, p. 3. On the other hand, only two of the nine aldermen appear to have sided with Thomas Gell, and they were dismissed by the anti-Gell faction as ‘near creature[s]’ of Sir John Gell.51 SP28/332, f. 686; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/8, p. 5; D258/9/5/16, p. 1.

After Gell’s departure, Bennett conferred with the committeemen and then ordered the names of some of Gell’s supporters struck out of the poll book on grounds of non-residence and other pretexts, and declared Mellor the winner.52 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5, 8, pp. 5-7; D258/9/5/16, pp. 1, 7-8; D258/9/5/20, p. 3. The indenture drawn up by Mellor’s supporters – signed by Bennett and affixed with the town seal – stated that their candidate had been elected ‘with the assent and consent of the greater part of the burgesses’.53 Brampton Bryan ms 31/3. Before the end of the day, however, 14 named freemen along with ‘the greater number of the burgesses’ drew up an indenture returning Gell, which Gresley, the county sheriff, duly carried up to Westminster.54 C219/43/1/99; Add. 28716, f. 39. Not content with making their own return, Gell’s supporters penned a petition to the Commons, protesting that Bennett’s attempts to frustrate Gell’s return had violated ‘the custom of the town constantly used during all our memories’. They also complained that the town seal had never before been employed without the consent of the common council.55 Add. 28716, f. 45v; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/5, 6, 14. At this point, Gresley handed the advantage to the Gell faction by delivering their indenture to the crown office several days before he did that of their rivals. In fact, by the time the indenture returning Mellor reached Westminster, Gell had reportedly take his seat (18 Nov.), and Mellor’s only option was to petition the committee of privileges against his rival’s return.56 Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/11, 14; Perfect Occurrences no. 48 (14-21 Nov. 1645), sig. Bb3 (E.266.20).

The committee of privileges devoted many hours to the Derby election dispute during the second half of 1646, yet apparently failed to report its findings to the House.57 Add. 28716, ff. 39-49; Derbys. RO, D258/9/5/20. Perhaps Gell’s majority on the poll proved impossible to gainsay, and Mellor withdrew his petition. At any rate, Gell was allowed to retain his seat – at least until late 1648, when he was among those Members secluded at Pride’s Purge.58 Infra, ‘Thomas Gell’. By contrast, Hallowes’s career at Westminster blossomed under the Rump.59 Infra, ‘Nathaniel Hallowes’. Moreover, his allies Bennett, Dallton and Mellor emerged as the leading men in Derby during the early 1650s.60 E330/22; E113/11, unfol. (deposition of John Dallton); Derby Local Studies Lib. Deeds, no. 10889.

Despite its status as a county capital, Derby lost one of its parliamentary seats under the Instrument of Government, and in the elections to both the first and second protectoral Parliaments it returned Bennett.61 C219/44/1, unfol. Derby regained its second seat in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, which saw the return of Bennett and his fellow alderman John Dallton.62 C219/46, unfol. There is no evidence of a contest in any of the three protectoral elections, and it is very likely that the successful candidates enjoyed the full backing of their fellow office-holders. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the corporation records have survived, and therefore very little is known about the town’s political complexion during this period.63 Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR, Derby Borough Recs. The corporation’s outlay of £4 5s on presents to Major-general John Lambert* in October 1659 probably reflected nothing more than a desire to cultivate friends at Whitehall.64 Derby Local Studies Lib. DBR/E/42, Derby corporation bills, receipts and vouchers. That the municipal interest was powerful is suggested by the fact that Derby, unlike many boroughs, was able to resist gentry intervention in the 1660 and 1661 elections, returning two townsmen on both occasions.65 HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Derby’.