DOUGHTY, John (c.1562-1629), of Red Cross, Bristol, Glos.

Doughty came of a Shropshire yeoman family related to the Barkers and other local gentry. Apprenticed to Richard Cole, alderman and mercer of Bristol, he was subsequently a founder member of the Newfoundland Company, dealt in iron on behalf of the 1st earl of Cork, Lismore Pprs. (ser. 2) ed. A.B. Grosart, ii. 183, 189. and became a shipowner in partnership with John Barker*, Merchants and Merchandise ed. P.W. McGrath (Bristol Rec. Soc. xix), 213. whose first cousin married his brother Francis. Vis. Salop, 28.

In 1626 Doughty was returned with John Whitson, who had appointed him a trustee for his charities, W. Leighton, ‘Manor and Par. of Burnett’, Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans. lix. 260. but he left no mark on the records of the second Caroline Parliament. Despite his enthusiasm for the Bristol trained bands, it seems unlikely that it was he who petitioned the Lords to support a project for maintaining 100,000 men in arms. HMC 4th Rep. 7. Both Bristol Members received £36 6s. 8d. in wages and expenses from the corporation, but Doughty also received additional sums by way of repayment, including £5 he had given the lord treasurer’s secretary ‘to pay the master of the Requests for getting the king’s hand to the petition for the reversion of the castle’. Bristol RO, mayor’s audit bk. 1625-9, p. 110.

Doughty was re-elected in 1628, this time with Barker, and the two men carried up to London a petition against the imposition on wines. J. Latimer, Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Cent. 101. His only recorded speech, on 6 June, was on the heads of the Remonstrance, when he observed that 200 Irish soldiers had landed at Bristol. CD 1628, iv. 158. His sole committee appointment was to examine a petition on the postal system (14 June). Ibid. 307. At the end of June he and Barker secured a warrant to reimburse the city for £1,000 towards the setting forth of two ships to guard the Bristol Channel out of the subsidy receipts. After the prorogation they wrote to Buckingham’s Admiralty secretary Edward Nicholas* to recommend captains and to ask the lord admiral to let them keep their prizes. CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 182, 195; City Chamberlains’ Accts. ed. D.M. Livock (Bristol Rec. Soc. xxiv), 122. They took back with them to Bristol ‘the several arguments made in Parliament House of the liberty of subjects’. Merchants and Merchandise, 144. Doughty received £30 9s. wages and charges for the first session, reckoned at 15 weeks 3 days, City Chamberlains’ Accts. 126. and £19 13s. 2d. for the second 60 days. Bristol RO, mayor’s audit bk. 1625-9, p. 320.

Doughty made his will on 12 Dec. 1629, in which he requested his ‘very loving friend and faithful pastor’, William Yeamans, to preach the funeral sermon. He left leaseholds in Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset to his wife, with remainder to his son Richard, then a fellow of All Souls, and provided portions of £300 and £350 for three unmarried daughters. He gave his weapons and armour to Richard, and left drinking money to his ‘loving friends and fellow soldiers’. He bequeathed £100 to the corporation, ‘to be let unto ten burgesses handicraftsmen’, and £5 to the poor of Stottesdon. He named Barker one of his executors. In accordance with his wishes he was buried at All Saints as near to his six children as possible on 5 Jan. 1630. PROB 11/157, f. 116; Bristol RO, All Saints par. reg. As ‘the eldest captain of our trained bands’, he was attended to the grave ‘by all the trained soldiers of our city, in warlike manner’. His widow married Nicholas Hele*. No later member of the family sat in Parliament. Adams’s Chron. of Bristol, 224.