MOORE, Thomas (1618-95), of Heytesbury, Wilts., Spargrove, Som. and Hawkchurch, Dorset.

The estate of Moore’s family was initially centred upon former monastic lands, principally Taunton Priory, but in the second half of the sixteenth century it expanded to comprise land across three counties, the centrepiece of which was a seat at Heytesbury. Moore’s great uncle, Sir Jasper Moore†, represented the borough in 1580, although controversy surrounding his treatment of local tenants may help explain why no member of the family was returned for the borough again until the Short Parliament.17HP Commons 1558-1603, iii. 74-5. Their standing in the county community was hardly affected, however, and our MP’s father served as sheriff in 1615, and married into the Wyndham family of Orchard Wyndham, one of the region’s most powerful dynasties.18List of Sheriffs, 154; Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 47.

Moore was elected to the Short Parliament at Heytesbury, despite being only 21, and despite having made no mark in local administration. His youth and inexperience ensured that he was named to just one committee, although this did not prevent him from retaining his seat in the Long Parliament.19CJ ii. 17b. His record in the latter is difficult to distinguish, however, from that of John Moore*, and perhaps also that of Richard More*. All that can be said with certainty before the outbreak of civil war was that Moore took the Protestation, sat on one committee on a private bill, and offered two horses for the parliamentarian cause, which he later changed to a gift of £100.20CJ ii. 129b, 133b; PJ iii. 58, 253, 472, 477. Our MP was probably not the ‘Mr Moore’ who sat on committees relating to either the west midlands (Richard More) or the north west (John Moore).21CJ ii. 160a, 191b, 253b, 625b, 853a. He was, however, almost certainly the man named to the committee regarding members of the Thynne family, his neighbours in Wiltshire, and possibly sat on a number of minor committees relating to private business.22CJ ii. 149a, 182a, 215a, 226b, 475a. He may also have displayed an interest in repealing Laudian church innovations, and particular grievances arising from Caroline government during the personal rule, notably those which underlay the prosecution of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).23CJ ii. 44b, 75a, 113b, 122b, 180a, 191b, 196a, 200a, 201a, 349a, 438a, 481a, 702b.

Although Moore displayed his parliamentarian allegiance in the summer of 1642, there is little evidence of zealous service in either Parliament or locality during the early phase of the conflict. In early November he was added to the committee for dispatches, but his inattendance prompted the Commons to threaten him with a £200 fine in May 1643.24CJ ii. 840b; iii. 77b; Add. 18777, f. 46. Faced with such a penalty, Moore returned to the Commons - to which he was formally readmitted on 22 May - but having taken the parliamentary covenant, over the next two years he may have sat on only three minor committees relating to aspects of the war effort.25CJ iii. 96a, 118b, 186a, 221a, 361b, 635b; iv. 59b. He did not subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant until August 1646.26CJ iv. 653a. Nevertheless, in June 1645 Moore was granted an MP’s allowance, and his absence from the Commons during the final months of the first civil war belies his activity as a member of the Committee of the West, and reflects also his involvement in monitoring the war effort in the localities, particularly in relation to the threat from the Dorset Clubmen (July 1645).27CJ iv. 161a, 196b, 292b; Harl. 166, f. 233v; Add. 29319, f. 29; Add. 22084, f. 9.

From the autumn of 1646, the process of identifying Moore in the official record is complicated further by the election of Thomas More*, although it is likely that our MP was largely absent from the House, if not from the committee for the safety of the Western Association.28CJ v. 35a, 134a, 329a, 330b; Add. 22084, f. 29v. He was certainly granted leave to go to the country in January 1648, and may well not have returned. It seems more probable that it was Thomas More who, in the midst of a burst of activity, was the ‘Mr Moore’ named to a committee regarding the future of parliamentarian garrisons in late November 1648, and it seems more certain that More was removed from the Commons as part of Pride’s Purge.29CJ v. 431b; vi. 87a. However, the names of both Thomas Moore and Thomas More figure on a list of secluded Members compiled in December 1648.30A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62). In any case, neither man sat thereafter.

Moore probably lived in quiet country retirement during the 1650s. Having migrated to Somerset sometime in the mid-1640s, he eventually settled at Hawkchurch in Dorset, where he was living at the death of his mother in 1662.31PROB11/307/262. He nevertheless retained his influence at Heytesbury, for which borough he was returned to the Covention in 1660, although he subsequently sat for Lyme Regis.32HP Commons 1660-1690. Moore died without a male heir in August 1695, apparently intestate.33Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 47; Wadham Coll. Reg. i. 119.