Durham

In urging the Rump to establish a university at Durham, the county’s inhabitants extolled the virtues of its intended site: ‘the said city of Durham is pleasant, in a wholesome air, upon a sweet river [the Wear] that doth near surround the whole city … it is within seven miles of Sunderland – a navigable port at the mouth of the said river – within 12 miles of Newcastle [upon Tyne]… provisions of all sorts are plentiful and fire-fuel [coal] in abundance’.1 The Humble Desires of the Gentlemen, Free-holders, and Inhabitants of the County and City of Durham…for Founding a Colledge at Durham (1652). Like York and other centres for gentry sociability, Durham derived much of its wealth from the service and retail trades. ‘In this town are much gentry’, remarked one observer in 1639, ‘it being the London (as it were) of those north parts, which extend as far as Barwick [Berwick-upon-Tweed]’.2 Six North Country Diaries ed. J.C. Hodgson (Surt. Soc. cxviii), 7. In 1673, the city was described as ‘a place much inhabited and frequented by the gentry of these parts, enjoyeth a good trade, and its shopkeepers are well furnished with commodities’.3 R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 93; Surtees, Co. Dur. iv. pt. 2, p. 25. According to the 1666 hearth tax returns, the borough of Durham (comprising Durham, Framwellgate and Elvet) contained 645 households, which suggests an overall population of about 2,900. Similar calculations using the 1674 returns, however, yield a figure nearer to 5,000.4 Durham Hearth Tax: Lady Day 1666 ed. A. Green, E. Parkinson, M. Spufford (British Rec. Soc. cxix), lxv, 86-94.

By its charter of incorporation (granted by the bishop of Durham in 1602), the city’s government consisted of a mayor, 12 aldermen and 24 common councillors – the latter chosen annually from Durham’s 12 trading guilds.5 Durham Civic Memorials ed. C.F. Whiting (Surt. Soc. clx), xiv. By 1649, the municipal officers also included a recorder and town clerk.6 Durham Civic Memorials ed. Whiting, 37; VCH Durham, 40. The corporation records are too patchy to determine the impact of the civil war and Restoration upon its composition and political complexion, although it was reported (admittedly in a very partial source) that the Engagement abjuring monarchy and House of Lords was taken in the city with ‘great rejoicings’ in 1650.7 VCH Durham, 40. Certainly parliamentarian victory in the civil war, by confirming the end of episcopal rule in both county and city, had served to strengthen civic autonomy. The corporation took advantage of this fact in 1651 by purchasing from the trustees for the sale of bishops’ lands the borough of Durham and all appurtenances for £200.8 Col. Top. et Gen. i. 291; VCH Durham, 39. The abolition of the see of Durham, whose occupants had traditionally represented the county’s interests at Westminster, may also have advanced the cause for enfranchisement, by which the city too had sought to gain parliamentary representation.9 Durham Civic Memorials ed. Whiting, 36. Under the Instrument of Government of 1653, the county was accorded two seats, the city one. The franchise was vested in the freemen – that is, those men who had served their apprenticeships and had been admitted members by their trading guild.10 Durham Civic Memorials ed. Whiting, xvi. The returning officer was almost certainly the mayor. The number of voters in this period is not known – in 1678, it was 838.11 HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Durham’.

In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654, Durham returned Anthony Smith of the civic parish of St Nicholas, who had recently been made an alderman. The election indenture has not survived, and there is no evidence of a contest. Smith probably owed his return to the influence of the corporation and to his status as a leading member of one of Durham’s wealthiest trading guilds, the mercers. His forwardness in the city’s campaign to reinvigorate its courts of justice, and in the cause of establishing a university at Durham, would also have done much to commend him to his fellow freemen.12 Infra, ‘Anthony Smith’; Durham Civic Memorials ed. Whiting, 64-5; VCH Durham, 40. He was returned for the city again in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656. Again, the election indenture has not survived. Durham county and city lost their seats following the adoption of the Humble Petition and Advice in 1657 and had to wait over 20 years to regain parliamentary representation.13 HP Commons 1660-1690.