Chippenham

Chippenham had returned Members to Parliament at various times since the end of the thirteenth century, but it was incorporated only in 1554. By that charter, the government was vested in a bailiff and 12 burgesses, and in the later sixteenth century they alone constituted the electorate, notwithstanding the efforts of freemen to exert their previously exercised rights to vote. However, the absence of specificity as to the franchise and the permission granted by the charter to co-opt further burgesses continued to leave room for dispute.1 Wilts. Rec. Soc. v. 4-5; HP Commons 1509-1558; HP Commons 1558-1603. The early seventeenth century witnessed freemen voting once more and several contests, but there were also underlying continuities. One was the longstanding presence of the Goldney family, which supplied bailiffs from the reign of Mary into the eighteenth century.2 Recs. Chippenham, 347-8. Another was the increasing tendency to elect Members from among substantial gentry with estates nearby and property within the borough. Bayntuns of Bromham first served in 1575 and Hungerfords in 1604, while Sir Francis Popham† sat in four successive Parliaments from 1624.3 HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629. A wealth of talent or ambition among independent and often wealthy men increased the potential for unpredictability.

One of the well-established clothing centres of north-west Wiltshire, Chippenham shared in the economic depression of the 1620s and 1630s.4 Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 2-3; Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Wilts. ed. Ponting, 95. In a context of anxiety over prices and poor relief, and the unwillingness of clothiers to take on apprentices, the borough and the hundred of the same name featured in confrontations with central government commissioners given power to search for saltpetre and enquire into the cloth industry.5 CSP Dom. 1631-3, pp. 152, 183; 1633-4, pp. 273, 415–6; VCH Wilts. v. 132-3. In May 1633 the privy council ordered magistrates to hold summer sessions at Chippenham instead of Warminster, the better to assist unpopular commissioner Anthony Wither to investigate market spinners.6 Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 96. Consistently assessed at £30 a year for Ship Money from 1634, by January 1636 the borough had ‘mislaid’ the writ in 1635 following the death of bailiff Gabriel Goldney, with less than half the sum collected.7 Recs. Chippenham, 207; CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 145, 160.

Given that in October 1633 bailiff Goldney and five leading burgesses had presented annual accounts to 15 other inhabitants, it seems likely that voters on 30 March 1640 numbered at least a score and perhaps as many as the 46 who turned out in 1624.8 Recs. Chippenham, 55; HP Commons 1604-1629. Their choice of Sir Edward Bayntun* may be put down not only to his family’s previous service and continued local prominence but also to his record as a particularly strong opponent of the cloth trade commissioners. His partner, Sir Edward Hungerford*, who had sat for the borough in 1620, had been among the county elite who in 1639 refused the loan for the bishops’ wars. Neither was noticeably active in the Short Parliament.

In May Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, managed to raise 300 men in the borough for military service in the north, while in June the commission of enquiry recommended the erection of an industrial corporation for the manufacture of cloth in Wiltshire towns including Chippenham.9 CSP Dom. 1640, p. 203; Recs. Chippenham, 208; Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 98. At the election on 29 October Bayntun and Hungerford stood again, but this time (if not previously) they had a rival candidate in Sir Francis Popham*. Since he had occupied one of the borough seats in the last four Parliaments of the 1620s and demonstrated his commitment to the town by benefactions in the 1630s, it is somewhat surprising that he had not exerted an interest in the spring. Keener for seat in October, he had already been elected for Minehead.10 Recs. Chippenham, 206-7. It is not entirely clear what happened at the poll. The surviving indenture (for which the undersheriff was paid a handsome eight shillings) is damaged and carries no signatures, but evidently the bailiff considered that Bayntun and Hungerford had prevailed.11 C219/43, pt. iii. box 5 no. 38; Recs. Chippenham, 208.

Popham took his seat for Minehead, and became immediately active on that basis, but some time before 15 January 1641 the committee of privileges had begun hearing his challenge to Bayntun’s election at Chippenham. Decisions were postponed several times in order to allow witnesses living ‘far off’ to reach London.12 CJ ii. 68a, 79b. On 9 February Thomas Fitts and John Wheeler (perhaps a kinsman of the William Wheeler who was among leading inhabitants in 1633) testified before the House that one William Bond (perhaps a kinsman of the John and Thomas Bond of 1633) had ‘abused and threatened’ some of Popham’s witnesses. Bond was sent for as a delinquent, but in the meantime hearings were put off for a further three weeks, during which the dispute seems to have run out of steam.13 CJ ii. 80b, 81a Bayntun kept his seat.

As the country descended into war, Chippenham spent a modest 36 shillings on fortifications.14 Recs. Chippenham, 209. Both its MPs became parliamentarian commanders, but within months the borough, like its neighbours, suffered from the catastrophic feuding between the fiery and foul-mouthed Bayntun and the proud and pious Hungerford. Diverted into confrontation with each other, to a large extent they were responsible for sabotaging the war effort in the area in the spring of 1643. Then and later Chippenham found itself paying taxes to both sides as it and surrounding strongholds changed hands, while troop movements and sieges caused further disruption.15 Recs. Chippenham, 210-13; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 301. Broadweavers from the town were claimed to have joined others in a 1647 petition highlighting their misery.16 Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry, 112.

In the meantime, Bayntun had dallied with defection to the king and denounced John Pym* and others for the conduct of the western campaign. He shocked MPs by his offensive demeanour, yet somehow survived. His attendance in the Commons always seems to have been intermittent, but he was occasionally evident in the borough records and following Pride’s Purge indulged in a surprising flurry of activity at Westminster.17 Recs. Chippenham, 216. On the other hand, Hungerford, a staunch Presbyterian, retreated from what had been a relatively high-profile career in Parliament in the months before his death at the end of October 1648. In pursuance of a writ issued on 11 November, an election for his replacement was held on the 29th, apparently on this occasion involving only the bailiff, Henry Lambert, and about a dozen burgesses (including the next Gabriel Goldney).18 CJ vi. 74a; C219/43, pt. iii. box 5, no. 40. The new Member, Colonel William Eyre II*, whose estate was at Neston, a few miles south west of the town, had been part of the garrison captured at Chippenham when it fell to the royalists in August 1645, and had been a stalwart of county administration since 1646. Besides support he may have garnered on his own account, he perhaps had endorsement from Bayntun, his neighbour and his brother’s former commander, or from Colonel Alexander Popham*, entertained by the borough before the election.19 Recs. Chippenham, 216-7. Sir John Danvers*, MP for Malmesbury, may also have had a hand in proceedings: it was to him that the inhabitants addressed a petition a few months later.20 Recs. Chippenham, 218.

Despite the passage of troops bound for Bristol and Ireland, Chippenham appears to have recovered its prosperity and its confidence. It borrowed from Walter Norborne*, from whom it took counsel on its charter, and maintained a close and beneficial connection with the Popham family.21 Recs. Chippenham, 62-5, 218-9, 222. In January 1655, by indenture with 13 of its leading citizens (including three Goldneys), Alexander Popham gave £142 to the borough towards buying a meadow; the profits were to be employed for binding poor children as apprentices.22 Recs. Chippenham, 303.

The borough was not represented again in Parliament until 1659. Signatories to the (damaged) election indenture of December 1658 returned by bailiff and clothier John Scott show a considerable overlap with the parties of the 1655 benefaction and suggest that the franchise was again limited.23 C219/48. Instead of Bayntun, who had died in 1657, voters gave their voices for his son and heir Edward Bayntun*. Eyre, who had represented the county in 1656, found a seat at Westbury, while Popham sat for Minehead. That left room for a newcomer, Somerset-born barrister James Stedman*, whose brother George’s entrepreneurial activities in the region perhaps commended him to the Chippenham oligarchy. Like Bayntun, he was probably a Presbyterian at this juncture.

Following the revival of the Rump in May 1659 Eyre returned promptly to Westminster as Chippenham’s surviving MP and was a more visible Member than hitherto. The recall the next year of those secluded at Pride’s Purge was celebrated in Chippenham by ringers, on whom the borough spent five shillings on 23 February 1660, although it had no practical effect locally.24 Recs. Chippenham, 224. After the Restoration Bayntuns and Hungerfords again dominated the town’s representation, but the active electorate increased again: 143 householders were registered as inhabitants in September 1671 and 99 voted in 1673.25 Wilts RO, G19/1/30; HP Commons 1660-1690.