STREET, Thomas (1625-96), of Worcester and the Inner Temple.

The Street family was an important one in the Worcester business community, and divided into various branches which are difficult to disentangle. Before the mid-sixteenth century, it is thought that the Streets came from Herefordshire.26Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘Fam. of Street’, 42. The family never seems to have entered a pedigree at the College of Arms, but Francis Street, a relative, became town clerk of Worcester in 1631 after an Oxford education and having been called to the bar.27Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 31; Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘Fam. of Street’, 45. Thomas Street’s father and grandfather were brewers and held property in Worcester by leases from the dean and chapter.28Worcester Cathedral Lib. ms A7 (ix), ff. 24, 38v, 54v, 55v, 56v; Buchanan-Dunlop, ‘Fam. of Street’, 46-7. Francis Street, either Thomas’s uncle or the town clerk, was verger and bailiff of city cathedral property.29Worcester Cathedral Lib. ms A7 (viii), f. 37v. Other relatives were clothiers.30Worcester Cathedral Lib. ms A7 (vii), f. 44.

Problems of identification persist with the Street family, in that an exact contemporary of Thomas Street the MP was another of the same name, who in 1639 was apprenticed as a clothier to his father, who, like the MP’s, was called George. This one, a cousin of the MP, married at around the same time, and chose children’s names from the same limited range as his namesake.31Worcs. Archives, 705:232/BA 5965/4a, unfol. (apprenticeship of Thomas Street, 23 May 1639). Yet another Thomas Street played a full part in the civic life of Worcester in the 1630s and 40s.32Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 342, 374, 391, 404, 406, 408, 409. Variant spellings of the name abound, but the future Member seems consistently to have spelled his name ‘Street’. 33Signature: Worcester Cathedral Lib. mss D107, D118, D118a.

George Street, probably the father of the MP, put his name to the royalist-inspired assize grand jury presentment or declaration of 3 August 1642. It repudiated the sessions grand jury declarations earlier in the summer, which had been orchestrated by John Wylde* and Humphrey Salwey*.34Three Declarations (1642), 3 (BL G3808.10). A few months before this, the future Member went up to Lincoln College, Oxford, and was recalled in February 1644 from there to run the family estate on the death of his father.35Al. Ox.; Burton’s Diary, iii. 254. Worcester was at this time in the hands of the royalists, and although Street never held a military commission from the king, he was evidently in sympathy with those who garrisoned the city. In 1659, witnesses appeared in the House of Commons to testify that Street accompanied the chief officers of the garrison to church, and that he wore a sword. The latter allegation was an attempt to show that Street was in arms for the king.36Burton’s Diary, iii. 425, 428. This was lame, and proved nothing more than that Street enjoyed the social side of royalism. More importantly, Street did ride out with the royalists, and in May 1646 on one of these forays encountered troops of Cols. John Birch* and Thomas Morgan. William Collins*, deputy treasurer of the county committee and MP for Worcester during the protectorate, was among the parliamentarian party, and arrested Street, who was soon exchanged for a prisoner in the Worcester garrison.37Burton’s Diary, iii. 428-9.

The Mr Street who in June 1646 helped reduce the various heads of negotiations produced in the garrison to a common format, and who narrowly missed death when his house was seriously damaged by a cannon ball on 12 July was probably Francis Street, the town clerk of Worcester.38Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend ed. Porter, Roberts, Roy (Worcs. Hist. Soc.n.s. xxv), 232, 238, 250. Thomas Street did not figure in the articles of surrender of Worcester later that month, nor did Henry Townshend list him among the most important royalists to ride out of the garrison when Thomas Rainborowe* and the county committee entered it.39Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend ed. Porter, Roberts, Roy, 264-5. Street was small fry – still aged only 20 at the surrender – and had no difficulty in living in Worcester under the regime of Parliament. George Street, his brother, was well enough thought of by Parliament and the local committee to be named to assessment commissions under the Rump, and later described how in 1651 Thomas advised him to have nothing to do with the cause of Charles Stuart.40A. and O.; Burton’s Diary, iii. 432. Thomas Street may have sat on the Worcester city grand jury in March 1656, when it considered a number of indictments for bastardy, and he was certainly paying local rates in September 1657, when the collector, a minister’s son, noticed his habit of swearing.41Worcs. Archives, 705:962/BA 8965/7/7/4; Burton’s Diary, iii. 429-30. By this time he had been called to the bar at the Inner Temple, but was still evidently spending much if not all his time in Worcester.

The elections at Worcester for Oliver Cromwell’s* Parliaments had seen in 1654 successes for William Collins, who had arrested Street in 1645, and Edward Elvines, who of the Worcester chamber had suffered most in the service of Parliament. The election for the second Parliament had been more contentious. Elvines had stepped down, and a three-cornered contest between Collins, Thomas Bound, a militia captain from Upton-on-Severn, and a lawyer, Edmund Gyles*, had ensued.42Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend ed. Porter, Roberts, Roy, 270. The views of the Worcester chamber do not seem to have been very influential. Street may have represented himself as a citizen of Worcester in 1659, against the outsider committeemen such as Collins. When the Worcester election for the 1659 Parliament was debated by the privileges committee, a witness friendly to Street reported how the minister Simon Moore thought well of him, and how Collins said he would not stand against a townsman, and would rather leave the city for a while than oppose Street. This seems implausible, but it does at least suggest the roles that Collins and Street respectively were playing vis-à-vis the citizens.43Burton’s Diary, iii. 432.

In the election itself, Street defeated Gyles, and on 5 February 1659, Edward Salwey moved in the House the reading of the petition against him on the grounds that he had been in arms against Parliament, and was a ‘common swearer’, who had been chosen by the ‘profane rabble and cavaliers’.44Burton’s Diary, iii. 69. When the case was heard by the privileges committee on 22 February, one of Street’s supporters was Richard Knightley*, brother-in-law and ally of Humphrey Salwey*. This suggests that by this time the appearance in the House of new men like Street could divide opinion in a family like that of Salwey, which had in Worcestershire served the parliamentarian cause as long as any.45Burton’s Diary, iii. 425, 435. The outcome of the hearing was inconclusive. On 23 and 24 March, Street rose in the House to speak, probably on the matter of his election, but was not called. The Parliament was dissolved before the matter was finally settled, and Street was not named to any committees while his case was pending.46Burton’s Diary, iv. 236, 244.

At the restoration of the monarchy, Street was returned again for Worcester to sit in the Convention. It quickly became clear that he was able to benefit from his family’s long-standing associations with the cathedral as tenants. He was granted first the office of under steward of dean and chapter manors, and soon afterwards the important office of surveyor-general of all the bishop’s lordships.47Worcester Cathedral Lib. dean and chapter mss, vol. A7 (xiv), ff. 1, 20. Street was a useful agent of the dean and chapter in negotiations with commissioners of the queen mother, who were attempting to recover rents they thought the cathedral owed her. He was never, however, a master in chancery, as one of the dean’s correspondents seemed to think.48Worcester Cathedral Lib. ms D101. The 7th Baron Windsor (Thomas Windsor alias Hickman) was an important tenant of the dean and chapter, and became high steward of the cathedral in November 1661.49Worcester Cathedral Lib. vol. A7 (xv), f. 1. Windsor and cavalier gentry such as Sir John Pakington* asserted themselves strongly over the boroughs of Worcestershire, not least as commissioners under the Corporation Act, and Windsor’s influence probably accounts for Street’s appointment as recorder of Droitwich and, later, as burgess at Bewdley. In June 1660, Street petitioned Charles II for a grant of the office of receiver of sewer fines, claiming that he had been faithful to the royal cause and that he had suffered for it in his time in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament. His bid was successful.50CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 47, 144.

In elections for the Cavalier Parliament, held for Worcester on 9 April 1661, Street polled 589 votes, in second place to Sir Rowland Berkeley†, who attracted 615. His subsequent career in Parliament was primarily as a Member with strong local interests, such as the Worcestershire clothing trade and the Droitwich salt industry. He became a judge with the help of the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) whom Street defended against attacks in the House in 1667. At the traditional ceremonies which accompanied his entry into the order of the serjeantcy, Street was supported by Thomas Vernon, a Worcester magistrate and, like Street, a lay servant of the cathedral. He opposed any relaxation in penal laws against dissenters, was named in lists of court supporters and was described in the lists of the Exclusionist leader, the 1st earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper*) as ‘thrice vile’. He was appointed a high court judge after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament in May 1681, and achieved the distinction of being the only one of the 12 judges to hear the case Godden v. Hales to find against the crown. Despite his being the only one, therefore, not to uphold the king’s right to dispense with the Test Act, he was not dismissed from office. After the revolution of 1688, however, his stand on this issue was not seen as a recommendation for continued office, and he was not re-appointed to the bench. He died on 8 March 1696, and was buried in the cloisters of Worcester cathedral, not having acquired more than a modest estate.51HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Thomas Street’; PROB11/235, f. 173v.