WOLSTENHOLME, Sir John (1596-1670), of Walsingham House, Seething Lane, London, and Nostell Priory, Yorks.

Wolstenholme belonged to one of the great customs families of the early modern period, and his early life was dominated by the career of his father, with whom he is sometimes confused. The two were admitted together to Gray’s Inn, and Wolstenholme’s membership of colonial companies reflected his father’s prominence within them. Moreover, the customs posts which he held, and the syndicates which he joined, more as a fiscal expert than as a court financier, were either secured alongside Wolstenholme senior, or in succession to him.35R. Ashton, Crown and the Money Market (1960), 84, 93-4, 97, 100-1, 105. Indeed, it was his father who was probably responsible for securing Wolstenholme’s parliamentary seats in the 1620s.36HP Commons 1604-1629.

At his father’s death in November 1639, Wolstenholme succeeded to a great estate, but the substantial loans to the crown with which it was already charged, and an increasingly tense political situation, ensured that he was able to enjoy his inheritance only briefly.37CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 128; Ashton, Crown and Money Market, 110. As he continued to receive instructions regarding payments to be made to Archbishop William Laud and Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke in the early months of 1640, Wolstenholme may have sensed that difficult times lay ahead, in terms both of the likelihood of securing repayment from the crown, and of hostility to the customs farm from opponents of Caroline policies.38CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 337, 497. He did not join the syndicate formed in 1640, and his election to the Short Parliament as member for Queenborough may have reflected a desire to secure a degree of financial protection.39Cent. Kent. Stud. QB/JMS4, f. 139; HMC 4th Rep. 24. He was named to just three committees, which reflected his interest in trade (30 Apr., 1 May), and his expertise with financial accounts (29 Apr.).40CJ ii. 15b, 17a, 17b.

It is not clear if Wolstenholme sought election to what became the Long Parliament. However, the fact that he did not again sit as an MP made it more difficult to defend his interests when the House of Commons turned to investigating the alleged abuses of the personal rule of Charles I. On 25 May 1651 Giles Grene* reported on three months of deliberations by the committee for customs that the farmers collectively owed the crown over £500,000; while Wolstenholme’s part in that was adjudged relatively modest, his late father was thought to have owed nearly £125,000.41Procs. LP iv. 561, 564-5, 567-8. On 1 June Wolstenholme junior, with his partners in the petty farm, was declared a delinquent for exacting excessive customs duties, but as his father’s heir he was also comprehended in the bill for the confiscation of the farmers’ estates, despite an appeal to Edward Hyde* on 28 June.42Procs. LP iv. 672, 681, 683; CCSP i. 220. Although they were allowed to compound, at £150,000, they all faced severe financial difficulties.43HMC Hatfield, xxii. 360. In the years that followed they also had the dilemma of whether to support the king (in the hope of securing repayment of their loans), or Parliament, which was in a position to sequester them.

When Wolstenholme left London in the early summer of 1642 he was stopped and searched on suspicion of intention to join the king; his plate was seized, but an order for its release was issued following a complaint to Speaker William Lenthall*.44HMC Portland, i. 42; CJ ii. 653. In September 1643 Wolstenholme’s attempts to remain active in East India Company adventures were thwarted by the order that his stock (valued at £2,000) should be detained for his failure to pay his assessment of £1,000.45CCAM 25, 131; CJ iii. 238a, 258a. Furthermore, in October his absence from London led to his suspension as collector of tonnage and poundage.46CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 654; LJ vi. 266b; CJ iii. 243a, 278a; 284b-285a; Add. 5497, f. 81. The following January his assessment was increased to £4,000, and his subsequent failure to pay resulted in the sequestration of his estate.47CCAM 131, 1485; Add. 5497, f. 79; SP20/7, f. 53v. Moreover, within months he and the other customs farmers were also ordered to make reparations to John Rolle, one of those merchants who had been punished for refusing to pay tonnage and poundage in the 1620s.48Add. 31116, p. 277.

Although Wolstenholme retired to his estate at Nostell, his involvement in attempts to raise money for the royalist cause in Yorkshire ensured further harassment at the hands of parliamentarians.49CCAM 907-8, 921; HMC 7th Rep. 117. In December 1644 he complained to the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), that he was in danger, ‘not only to be undone by plunder, but myself, wife, children, and servants subject to the violence and rapine of disordered soldiers before and in the presence of your captain and officers’.50Add. 18979, f. 168. Such harsh treatment continued, however, and although he professed in April 1645 that he ‘never did anything to my knowledge to maintain a difference between His Majesty and his subjects’, he nevertheless claimed to ‘daily suffer under pretence of a former delinquency’, and alleged that his coach and horses had been taken by Lady Fairfax, in contravention of the terms for the surrender of York.51Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 121-2.

Attempts to squeeze money from his estate continued that summer, as plate was taken from his London town house, and in October he was ordered to be taken into custody for the non-payment of his assessment.52CCAM 131. His case was finally respited in September 1646, on the grounds that he remained under sequestration, although it is uncertain whether he ever compounded.53CCAM 131, 1485; CCC 96, 98, 1805. Following a renewed call to pay his assessment in the spring of 1650, Wolstenholme’s estate was once more sequestered, although he subsequently secured a hearing, in the hope of launching a challenge, upon payment of £1,000.54CCAM 132, 1485. Granted a pass to travel to London, he secured the release of his property in December 1650, by paying a further £500.55CCAM 132; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 559, 565.

This financial settlement with the commonwealth government provided little financial relief, however, and as his creditors lined up with claims against him, he was declared bankrupt, although upon taking the Engagement he was permitted to remain in London to seek a solution to his problems.56CCC 1206, 2691; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 517. Faced with claims from the authorities for repayment of money borrowed for the king during the first civil war, Wolstenholme claimed to be indebted to the sum of £100,000.57CCAM 922. His son was forced to sell the estate which Wolstenholme had settled upon him at his marriage, including the house in Seething Lane, which was sold for £2,400 to be used as the office of the navy commissioners, and a house in Rotherhithe, Surrey, sold to Thomas Pride* for £8,200.58CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 408, 499; 1654, pp. 88, 459; 1660-1, p. 317. Furthermore, attempts by the customs farmers to broker a deal with the protectoral government proved impossible to bring to fruition, despite lengthy discussions.59Stowe 744, f. 24; Stowe 185, f. 24.

It was only with the Restoration that Wolstenholme’s financial situation began to improve. Together with his old colleagues, in September 1660 he was made a commissioner for the collection of tonnage and poundage, with £2,000 a year.60CCSP v. 54; CTB i. 226, 235, 431; HMC 5th Rep. 168. The crown also looked favourably upon his claim for recovery of the properties he had been forced to sell, and which had then been forfeited from their new owners to the crown, for money owed to him as a customs official, and for repayment of £12,000 lent to the king after 1642.61CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 317; CTB i. 47, 107; HMC 7th Rep. 117. In view of his claim, in January 1663, for a further £90,000, upon a debt which was acknowledged by the crown, Wolstenholme was made a member of the syndicate to oversee the great customs farm, and by the end of 1664 he had not only secured a schedule for repayment of the aforementioned £12,000, but also the award of a baronetcy.62CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 18, 61, 123, 494, 511, 676; 1664-5, pp. 127, 456; CTB i. 628, 646; CCSP v. 457; Bodl. Clarendon 104, ff. 134-5; C66/3061/25. He remained a customs farmer for the rest of his life, although negotiations with the crown over financial arrangements for the repayment of his debts remained complex and protracted.63CTB i. 632, 704; ii. 189; iii. 190; CSP Dom. 1664-5, pp. 310, 369, 540; 1665-6, pp. 334, 390, 392, 440, 447, 474; 1668-9, p. 34; 1670, pp. 298, 633. His financial problems were not solved before his death, but he was able to bequeath property in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and London to his one remaining son, as well as a portion of £2,500 for a granddaughter. Upon his death, in July 1670, he was buried alongside other members of his family at Stanmore in Middlesex, the county which his grandson, Sir John Wolstenholme†, represented in Parliament in 1695.64PROB11/333/348; Lysons, Environs, iii. 400; HP Commons 1690-1715.