ELLISON, Robert (1614-78), of St Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumb.

Ellison’s family had furnished Newcastle with mayors and merchant grandees since the mid-sixteenth century.1Surtees, Durham, ii. 74; R. Welford, Men of Mark ‘twixt Tyne and Tweed, ii. 167. Like all his immediate forebears, he was a leading member of the Newcastle Merchant Adventurers Company, and it is clear from their records that his trading interests lay mainly with Holland and the Baltic states.2ADM7/673, p. 530; E190/193/1, f. 3v and passim; Tyne and Wear Archives, GU.MA/3/3, f. 79; Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. Dendy, ii. 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 546; 1654, p. 80; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 162. Although also a member of the Hostmen’s Company – the cartel of River Tyne coal-shippers – he was evidently not a specialist coal-merchant, which may partly explain why he failed to secure a place on the aldermanic bench. Nevertheless, he was apparently wealthier than many of his fellow Hostmen, including Henry Dawson*, Thomas Lyddell* and Henry Warmouth*.3Extracts from the Recs. of the Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. F. W. Dendy (Surt. Soc. xciii), i. 135.

In keeping with his puritan sympathies, Ellison sided with Parliament at the outbreak of civil war, and like Dawson, Warmouth and Thomas Lilburne* he withdrew from Newcastle following the town’s occupation by royalist forces in the autumn of 1642.4Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 28. A year later he was among those the corporation disenfranchised for their ‘disaffection to the king and the present government of Newcastle’.5Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/1, p. 113; Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 28. On 5 December 1644, seven weeks after the Scots had seized Newcastle, the Commons issued a series of orders for removing the town’s royalist governors and installing Ellison and other leading puritan townsmen in their place.6CJ iii. 714b-715a. But the Newcastle parliamentarians continued to feel vulnerable, particularly given the prominence of ‘malignants’ in the River Tyne coal trade, and in April 1645 they wrote to Speaker William Lenthall requesting that their royalist opponents be detained in London ‘till they have cleared themselves of those high crimes we charge them with’.7Bodl., Tanner 60, f. 117; Howell, Newcastle, 171. The writers also implied that they could manage the region’s collieries to greater advantage to the state than their royalist rivals. Ellison and his friend Edward Man (the Newcastle town clerk) were evidently leading figures in this attempt to secure a larger slice of the coal trade for the town’s new governors.8CJ iv. 179b.

During 1645 and 1646 Ellison was active in settling a godly ministry in Newcastle and generally consolidating the parliamentarian interest in the town.9Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/1, pp. 130, 133, 164, 166, 171. In March 1646, however, cracks began to appear in the new governing elite, with Ellison and six other common councillors joining Alderman John Cosins in raising objections to the appointment of Henry Dawson – a Congregationalist or political Independent (or both) – as deputy-mayor.10Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’; Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 62. Cosins was godfather to at least one of Ellison’s sons, and Ellison evidently shared his pro-Covenanter sympathies.11St Nicholas par. reg. (bapt. entry for 28 Aug. 1645); SP46/106, f. 308; Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/1, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. pp. 159-60; SP46/106, f. 308; Howell, Newcastle, 177-8. By the winter of 1646, Cosins, Ellison, and Ellison’s friends Edward Man and Christopher Nicholson, were spearheading a Presbyterian campaign for the immediate enactment of the writ for electing a new MP for Newcastle in place of the disabled Sir Henry Anderson.12Tyne and Wear Archives, Ms 543/28, Newcastle Chamberlains’ Acct. Bk. f. 147v; Perfect Occurrences, no. 52 (18-25 Dec. 1646), sig. Eee3 (E.368.2). The town’s Presbyterians were eager for the election to take place before the town’s Scottish garrison departed, while Dawson and his pro-Independent ruling clique were equally concerned to delay the election until after the Scots’ withdrawal.13Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. Rancour between the two groups seems to have spilled over into the elections to the common council for 1646-7, which saw Cosins and Ellison both dropped from their places.14Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 64. There are also signs that the Dawson group deliberately overlooked Ellison for nomination to the St Nicholas church presbytery – a blatant snub given Ellison’s Presbyterian convictions.15Bodl. Tanner 58, ff. 352r-v; Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/1, pp. 112-17.

The feud between the town’s rival political interests came to a head in March 1647, when the recruiter election at Newcastle finally took place. In what was a bitterly contested affair, Ellison stood against Alderman Henry Warmouth, who was a leading figure in the Dawson camp. According to the newsbooks, Ellison had the backing of about 600 of the freemen whereas Warmouth received only about 80 voices.16Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. Nevertheless, Dawson (who was then mayor), the town sheriff and the aldermen returned Warmouth’s name on the indenture. Outraged by the Independents’ sharp practice, the town’s Presbyterians sent several of their number – Ellison reportedly among them – to Westminster to petition against Warmouth’s return.17Perfect Occurrences, no. 14 (2-9 Apr. 1647), 107-8 (E.383.25). The dispute was referred to a Commons committee, which reported its opinion on 23 July, whereupon the House voted that Warmouth’s election was illegal and that a new writ be issued.18CJ v. 133a. Ellison’s stock at Newcastle inevitably rose as a result of this ruling, and that autumn he was re-elected to the common council.19Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 81. The new by-election was held in December 1647 and once again saw Ellison pitted against a leading member of the Dawson group.20Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. The contest went to a poll in which Ellison emerged the clear victor and he was duly returned by the town sheriff. In both the March and December elections, Ellison’s opponents insinuated that his following among the freemen included many delinquents, although whether there was any substance to this charge is impossible to verify.21Supra, ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’.

Although Newcastle corporation was to pay Ellison a full year’s salary as the town’s MP from 1647 to 1648, there is no evidence that he attended the House before 23 February 1648, when he took the Covenant.22Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/3, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. for Sealing Docs., f. 34; CJ v. 471a. During his brief career in the Long Parliament he was named to just three committees – for the stricter observance of the sabbath (23 Feb.); on an ordinance for abolishing dean and chapters and selling their possessions (16 June); and for discovering the ‘traitors’ who had invited the Scottish Engagers to invade England (20 July).23CJ v. 471a, 602a, 640b. Despite his pro-Scots sympathies he seems to have worked closely at Westminster with the town’s other MP, the radical John Blakiston, and during the second civil war he was regularly teamed with Blakiston on Commons assignments for bolstering Parliament’s military establishment in the northern counties.24Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/1, pp. 230, 261, 264; CJ v. 673b, 678a. But after he had been granted leave of absence on 22 September, his name disappears from the Commons Journals until 1660.25CJ vi. 27a. William Prynne* listed him among the Members secluded at Pride’s Purge, or those who had refused to sit thereafter until those secluded had been restored.26W. Prynne, A Full Declaration of the True State of the...Secluded Members Case (1660), 55 (E.1013.22). But by withdrawing from the House in September, Ellison had saved the army the trouble of excluding him in December.

The second civil war seems to have undermined the Presbyterian interest in Newcastle, and Ellison failed to secure re-election to the common council for 1648-9 or indeed for any subsequent year. Nevertheless, he remained an important figure in municipal affairs after the regicide and was even trusted in matters relating to the maintenance of the parliamentarian garrison in the town.27SP28/240, ff. 55, 160; Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/1, pp. 397-8, 403; MD.NC/2/2, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. pp. 23, 166. It was Ellison who oversaw the gilding of the commonwealth’s arms on the town bridge in 1651.28Tyne and Wear Archives, Ms 543/32, Newcastle Chamberlains’ Acct. Bk. f. 210. Moreover, when Ralph Gardner challenged the Hostmen’s monopoly on the River Tyne coal trade in 1653, Ellison was among those appointed by the corporation to present the town’s case to the council of trade at Whitehall.29Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/2, pp. 171, 177, 178, 179, 180; Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 162; Monopoly on the Tyne, 1650-8 ed. R. Howell, 110. The corporation described Ellison and his fellow delegates as ‘persons upon whose fidelity and ability the said mayor and burgesses may rely’.30Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/2, Newcastle Common Council Order Bk. for Sealing Docs., f. 224. Ellison was also roped in by the corporation to help oversee the building of a new town court during the later 1650s.31Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/2/2, p. 300; Newcastle Council Min. Bk. ed. Dodds, 211.

Ellison re-emerged at the forefront of Newcastle’s political life in January 1660, when General George Monck* appointed him commander of the town’s militia forces.32CCSP iv. 526. As he informed Monck in February, he was eager to take his seat following the re-admission of the secluded Members, but his duties as sheriff of County Durham prevented him from returning to Westminster.33HMC Leyborne-Popham, 161-2. His support for the restoration of monarchy is implied in his words to Monck on 19 March 1660: ‘I pray God keep your Excellency and make you yet further instrumental in the settlement of these nations’.34CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 397.

Ellison was returned for Newcastle in the elections to the 1660 Convention, in which he was named to 36 committees.35HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Robert Ellison’. Yet despite his apparent support for the Restoration, he was omitted from the County Durham bench and other local offices during 1660. He was also excluded from municipal politics after 1660 and, perforce, largely confined himself to business activities, in which he continued to prosper. Indeed, in 1662 Newcastle corporation considered farming out the collieries of Whickham and Gateshead – the so-called ‘grand lease’ – to Ellison for £8,280 and an annual rent of £200.36Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/3, f. 61v. But in the end it opted to demise the premises to a consortium of merchants of which Ellison was a member. He continued to play a leading role in the Newcastle Merchant Adventurers after 1660 and was serving as governor of the company when he died on 12 January 1678.37Tyne and Wear Archives, GU.MA/2/1, pp. 9, 31; Brand, Newcastle, i. 298. He was buried at St Nicholas three days later.38St Nicholas par. reg.

In his will, Ellison referred to his lands in Jarrow and to lands and tenements in Newcastle and made bequests totalling in excess of £2,000. Among the ‘good friends’ he mentioned were the ejected Presbyterian ministers William Pell and Thomas Wilson, the County Durham Presbyterian Sir James Clavering*, and Thomas Wood, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.39Durham UL, DPR/I/1/1677/E5/1-2; Calamy Revised, 385, 537-8. In light of these bequests, it is perhaps significant that his brother’s house in Newcastle had been licensed in 1672 as a Presbyterian meeting house.40CSP Dom. 1672, p. 577. Ellison’s great-grandson, Cuthbert Ellison, sat for Shaftesbury in the mid-eighteenth century.41HP Commons 1715-1754, ‘Cuthbert Ellison’.