BIRCHE, Thomas (1608-78), of Birch Hall, Manchester, Lancs.

Family and Education

bap. 5 June 1608, o.s. of George Birch of Birch Hall, and Anne, da. of Ellis Hey of Monkshall, Eccles, Lancs.Eccles ed. A.E. Hodder (Lancs. Par. Reg. Soc. xxv), 56; Booker, Birch, 86, 87. m. 21 Oct. 1623, Alice (d. 1697), da. of Thomas Brooke of Norton, Runcorn, Cheshire, 5s. 5da.Warrington ed. A. Sparke (Lancs. Par. Reg. Soc. lxx), 137; Booker, Birch, 98. suc. fa. 22 Aug. 1611.Lancs. IPM ed. J.P. Rylands (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. iii), 260. d. 6 Aug. 1678.Norris Pprs. ed. T. Heywood (Chetham Soc. o.s. ix), 20.

Offices Held

Military: capt. of ft. (parlian.) 13 June 1642; maj. 14 Dec. 1642; col. 15 Mar. 1643–8 Nov. 1645.CJ vi. 503b. Gov. Liverpool by Mar. 1649–?Apr. 1655.Perfect Diurnall no. 311 (9–16 July 1649), 2654 (E.531.22); CCAM 891; TSP iii. 359. Col. of militia ft. Lancs. 24 May 1650–?CSP Dom. 1650, p. 506.

Local: dep. lt. Lancs. 4 July 1642–?CJ ii. 649a; LJ v. 178b. Commr. sequestration, 27 Mar. 1643;A. and O. Westmld. 8 July 1648;LJ x. 371b. assessment, Lancs. 18 Oct. 1644, 23 June 1647, 16 Feb. 1648, 7 Apr., 7 Dec. 1649, 26 Nov. 1650, 10 Dec. 1652, 24 Nov. 1653, 9 June 1657, 26 Jan. 1660;A. and O.; An Act for an Assessment (1653, E.1062.28). Northern Assoc. 20 June 1645; defence of Lancs. 29 Aug. 1645.A. and O. J.p. 28 Sept. 1647-c.June 1660.Lancs. RO, QSC/47–61. Commr. northern cos. militia, 23 May 1648; militia, 2 Dec. 1648, by June 1650, 26 July 1659, 12 Mar. 1660;A. and O.; SP28/211, f. 672. Cheshire 8 Aug. 1659;CJ vii. 751b. maintenance of ministers, Lancs. 29 Mar. 1650;Lancs. and Cheshire Church Surveys ed. H. Fishwick (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. i), i. 1–3. ct. martial, James Stanley†, 7th earl of Derby, 11 Sept. 1651.Stanley Pprs. ed. F.R. Raines (Chetham Soc. o.s. lxvii), p. cccxxxvi. Judge, relief of poor prisoners, Lancs. 5 Oct. 1653. Commr. ejecting scandalous ministers, 28 Aug. 1654.A. and O.

Civic: freeman, Liverpool 7 Sept. 1649–?d.Chandler, Liverpool, 410; Liverpool Town Bks. 1649–71 ed. M. Power (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. cxxxvi), 254.

Central: commr. for compounding, 2 Nov. 1649.CJ vi. 318a. Member, cttee. for the army, 17 Dec. 1652;CJ vii. 230b. cttee. for plundered ministers, 25 June 1659.CJ vii. 693b.

Parlimentarian

BIRCHE, Thomas (1608-78), of Birch Hall, Manchester, Lancs.

: of Birch Hall, Lancs., Manchester.

Volume

Commons 1640-1660

Web Title

BIRCHE, Thomas (1608-78), of Birch Hall, Manchester, Lancs.

Will

not found.

Estates

in 1611, inherited Birch Hall, property in Birch, Rusholme and Withington and a moiety of 3 messuages in Manchester, Lancs.Lancs. IPM ed. Rylands, 259. In 1631, assessed at £10 for distraint of knighthood.J.P. Earwaker, ‘Obligatory knighthood temp. Chas. I’ (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. xii), 215. In 1640, purchased property in Gorton, Manchester, for £41.Manchester Central Lib. M35/6/2/1. Estate reckoned to be worth about £250 p.a. bef. civil war.Blackwood, Lancs. 94. In 1650, he and Thomas Fell* purchased from a private seller former crown manor of Haslingden, Lancs. for £350, which they sold in 1652.Lancs. RO, QDD/50/23; I. Gentles, ‘The Debentures Market and Military Purchases of Crown Land, 1649-60’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1969), 254, 280. In 1651-2, Birche, Fell and four others purchased fee farm rents in former crown manor of West Derby, Lancs. for £1,816 (part of which they sold in 1654).C54/3674/1; C54/3801/15; SP28/288, f. 39. In 1652, Birche and Fell purchased, for £4,815, fee farm rents in Lancs. worth £369 p.a.SP28/288, ff. 56, 58, 61, 62, 63. In 1653, Birche and another gentleman purchased rents in the Wapentake of Salford, Lancs. for £1,103;Gentles, ‘Debentures Market’, 254; B.G. Blackwood, ‘The Lancs. Gentry, 1625-60: a Social and Economic Study’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1973), 360. and Birche purchased a mill and premises in Cheetham, Lancs. (part of forfeited estate of earl of Derby), for £208.C54/3766/6. In 1655, he purchased Carleton Hall, Lancs. and adjoining lands from a royalist private seller for £400.Lancs. RO, QDD/51/16. In 1659, purchased closes in Cheetham for £43 and (from William West*) former crown lands in Bolton-le-Sands, Lancs., for £14 9s.Lancs. RO, QDD/54/5; QDD/54/4.

Oxford 1644

Addresses

lodgings in St Martin’s Lane, between St Martin-in-the-Fields and Charing Cross, Westminster (1652).CCC 621.

Religion

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