THURLAND, Edward (1607-83), of the Inner Temple, London, and Great Doods, Reigate, Surr.

The Thurland family were originally from Nottinghamshire but this MP’s grandfather, Gervase Thurland (d.1577), was a London merchant whose wife was from Staffordshire.35Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 190-1; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 317. By the early seventeenth century his father was well established in Reigate and was the steward at Chipstead of (Sir) Samuel Owfeild*, another incomer from the metropolitan mercantile community.36Surr. Arch. Colls. xlviii. 43; SP16/540/1, f. 162. Edward Thurland senior took the Protestation with his son in 1641 or 1642 and lived long enough to pay part of his assessed contribution to the parliamentarian war effort.37Surr. Arch. Colls. lix. 50; CCAM 441.

Thurland himself was called to the bar in 1634 and may thereafter have begun to take over his father’s position at Chipstead and to become the man of business for various local grandees that he certainly was later.38CITR ii. 215; Surr. Arch. Colls. xlviii. 43. It is plausibly he, rather than his father, who, following the elections of March 1640, became the first of the family to enter Parliament. Examining double returns from Reigate, the privileges committee concluded that ‘Thurland’s election appeared clear’, unlike that of the other two candidates, Sir Thomas Bludder* and Robert Goodwin*, and it was duly endorsed on 20 April.39CJ ii. 6b, 7a; Aston’s Diary, 148. However, Thurland made no recorded contribution to the session. Neither does he seem to have sought re-election in the autumn.

Thurland appears to have taken no part in the civil wars, concentrating instead on his legal practice. In August 1644 he kept a court baron in Reigate for Elizabeth Howard, widow of John Mordaunt, 1st earl of Peterborough.40Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 295. On 9 August 1644, when his address was given as the Temple, he was summoned to pay the remainder of his and his late father’s assessment. After some months’ delay, he appeared and was discharged.41SP19/96, ff. 17-18; CCAM 441. He continued to act as steward for the Oldfields and may have acted as creditor for his growing list of legal clients.42Surr. Arch Colls. xlviii. 43. In 1649 he acquired the manor of Biggin and Tamworth in Mitcham from the indebted and sequestered Sir Francis Carew (Francis Carew II†), for whose estates at Beddington and elsewhere he was steward at least during the minority of the heir, Nicholas Carew*, and perhaps for a longer period. This activity brought him within the orbit of the heir’s guardian, Carew Ralegh*, and the tenant of Beddington, the royalist Robert Rich, 3rd earl of Warwick.43VCH Surr. iv. 232; Surr. Hist. Centre, 2152/1, 2163/1/8; Sutton Local Studies Centre, 25/1/16. Also in Thurland’s portfolio over the succeeding decade were manors and other property belonging to the recusants Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu, Henry Howard, 22nd earl of Arundel, and John Weston, as well as the future MP Thomas Turgis*.44E. Suss. RO, HIC/45, 46; SAS-RA/6; W. Suss. RO, Add MS 1231, 1232; COWDRAY/86; SAS-BA/103; SAS-EG/101A; SHILLINGLEE 3/19; CCC 2171, 2544; VCH Surr. iii. 238; N. Beaton, No Treason to say, Kings are Gods Subjects (1661), preface. Meanwhile, he was also close to Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, the former parliamentarian lord lieutenant of Surrey now living in retirement at Petworth, the royalist clergyman Jeremy Taylor and the diarist John Evelyn.45Evelyn Diary, ed. Wheatley, iii. 202-3; 216, 228-33. In 1657 Evelyn expressed warm praise for a learned but accessible treatise on prayer which Thurland had circulated in manuscript.46Evelyn Diary, ed. Wheatley, iii. 228-9.

When Reigate regained its borough seats in 1659, Thurland was again elected to Parliament. There can be little doubt that he brought to the House support for those promoting a restoration of the monarchy, but he made very little visible contribution to proceedings. His only appearance in the Journal was his appointment to the elections committee (28 Jan.).47CJ vii. 594b.

Thurland was re-elected to the Convention. Following the Restoration his career flourished at both local and national level. He headed an official list of Surrey justices of the peace in October 1660 and was an active magistrate thereafter.48Surr. Rec. Soc. xxxv. 33 and passim; xxxvi, xxxix, passim. Returned a third time to Parliament, through the patronage of James, duke of York, he collected borough offices in and around Reigate.49HP Commons 1660-1690; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 40, 342; iii. app., lvii; Hooper, Reigate, 118; C181/7, p. 31; SR; Surr. Arch Colls. lxii. 102. Knighted in 1665, he later became a serjeant at law and a baron of exchequer.50Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 240; Baker, Order of Serjeants at Law, 195, 445, 540; Sainty, Judges, 125; Sainty, Law Officers, 86. He died on 14 January 1683 and was buried at Reigate.51Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 317. In his will, drawn up the previous month, he left his law and history books to his surviving son and namesake and his divinity books to his nephew, Alexander Forbes; other beneficiaries included two ‘daughters-in-law’ – Frances Alford, wife of Edward junior, and Susan Carew (whose rights related in some way to a deceased ‘daughter-in-law Phillip Booker).52PROB11/372/192. Edward junior died in 1687, but his longer-lived son, also Edward Thurland† (b.1669), sat in Parliament for Reigate at the end of the seventeenth century.53Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 317; HP Commons 1690-1715.