BIDDULPH, Theophilus (c. 1612-83), of Cheapside, London and Westcombe Park, Greenwich, Kent.

Theophilus Biddulph was descended from a Staffordshire family with strong mercantile connections with London. A younger son, he was apprenticed in 1628 to Robert Wilson, a City Draper and silk merchant, and in later years he worked in partnership first with Wilson and then his own brother-in-law, Peter Birkenhead.1Roll of the Drapers’ Co., ed. Boyd, 18; J.R. Woodhead, Rulers of London, 30. Money-lending was a lucrative side-line. For example, he lent Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) £330, at 8 per cent interest, in December 1641.2Petworth House, Orrery MS 13192, unfol. Biddulph was appointed to his first public office in August 1642, as one of the trustees for the Irish adventure in which he had invested £200 on behalf of himself and his kinsman, Roger Birkenhead.3CSP Ire. Adv. 89, 309. During the civil war, Biddulph’s prosperity increased. He became a liveryman of the Drapers’ Company in 1644; in April 1646 he was associated in a business deal with Robert Goodwin* and John Goodwyn*; and in August 1647 he was made free of the East India Company.4Johnson, Hist. of Drapers iv. 454; C78/479/11; Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, p. 217. ‘A sober, discreet man’, Biddulph was a reluctant public servant, a tendency which may have become more pronounced after the exclusion of his father from the Long Parliament at Pride’s Purge in December 1648.5Pepys’s Diary vi. 206; W. Prynne, A Vindication of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1649), 29 [recte 33] (E.539.5). When Biddulph was elected alderman of Bread Street ward in July 1651 in place of his uncle, Anthony Biddulph, he preferred to pay a fine at the maximum rate of £800 rather than serve.6Aldermen of London i. 50; CLRO, Rep. 61, ff. 178, 180v. A few days later he also begged ‘to be freed from being hereafter eligible to the office of a sheriff’, and this was duly granted.7CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 61. During the civil wars Biddulph amassed a considerable fortune through trade, and in June 1652 he purchased Westcombe manor near Greenwich, which was to become his principal residence.8Hasted’s Hist. of Kent, ed. Drake, 53.

Although nominated in the London election for the first protectorate Parliament in August 1654, he was not chosen.9Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. His standing in the City was not affected, however, and he went on to be elected to the common council for the ward of Cheap in January 1656. 10CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 130. In August of that year, Biddulph was elected to represent the City in the second protectorate Parliament, as part of a slate of moderate (and even crypto-royalist) MPs including Thomas Adams, John Jones II and Richard Browne II. 11TSP v. 337; Clarke Pprs. iii. 70. Biddulph was refused a ticket by the council of state and on 22 September signed the protestation of the excluded Members addressed to the Speaker.12Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 280. There was no lasting animus between Biddulph and the protectoral authorities, however. Parliament approved his appointment to the London assessment commission and the Kent sewers commission in June 1657, and he was appointed to the committee of the East India Company at the beginning of July.13C181/6, p. 228; A. and O.; Cal. Ct Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, p. 153. He was re-admitted to the House for the second session in January 1658, when he was appointed to four committees. On 21 January he was added to the committee of privileges and the next day he was named to committees on the act for registering births, marriages and deaths and on a bill regulating residence at universities.14CJ vii. 580b, 581a. On 28 January he was appointed to the committee to attend the lord protector to request him to publish his speech made to the Commons three days earlier.15CJ vii. 589a. After the dissolution, in March 1658, the council of state, fearing a royalist invasion, recommended that Biddulph should be added to the London militia commission to prepare the trained bands to meet any future emergency.16CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 330.

Biddulph was re-elected for the City in January 1659 alongside William Thomson and John Jones II.17Clarke Pprs. iii. 173; CCSP iv. 133-4. On 26 January he was appointed a commissioner for administering the oath to Members according to the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice.18CJ vii. 593a. Otherwise he was named to only one committee: that to examine treasury accounts, on 17 February.19CJ vii. 605a. He was later reappointed to the London militia commission and on 21 April, in his only recorded speech, he claimed that a petition from the commission to Charles Fleetwood*, supporting the army’s grievances, had been organized by a minority. He assured parliament ‘that neither the City nor the militia of London will intermeddle with any affairs of this House’ – an intervention that provoked cries of ‘name him’ from the army’s friends in the chamber.20Burton’s Diary, iv. 475-6.

After the collapse of the protectorate, Biddulph continued his business activities, investing money and trading in satins and other luxury cloths through the East India Company.21Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, pp. 206, 330-1. He also remained politically active in the City. He was appointed as one of the oyer and terminer commissioners for London in May 1659.22CJ vii. 658a; C181/6, p. 357. The restored Rump, anxious to settle the London trained bands, reappointed him to the militia commission in July.23A. and O.; Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660) 54 (E.1923.2). The ejection of the Rump by John Lambert* in October split the commission and Biddulph and others ‘eminent for estates and interest in the City’ opposed attempts by the army’s supporters to write to George Monck*, who was preparing to march south, ‘testifying their dislike of his undertaking’. When the letter was printed in early November, Biddulph was listed as one of the ‘dissenters’ who signed and published a disclaimer, ‘lest the same should be deemed the free and unanimous act of the committee of the militia of London’.24Narr. Procs. Cttee. of Militia of London (1659, 669 f.22.6). After clashes between London apprentices and the army in December, Biddulph was appointed to a city committee to consider the apprentices’ petition calling for a free Parliament.25Clarke Pprs. iv. 168. He remained on good terms with the council of state in the spring of 1660, and was recommended to Parliament as a militia commissioner in February.26HMC Leyborne-Popham, 168.

Biddulph was one of the city commissioners sent to wait on Charles II at The Hague in May 1660, and he was knighted on that occasion.27C. Walker, Compleat Hist. of Independency (1660), 102 (E.1052.4); Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 226. After the restoration, he gave evidence at the trial of the regicide Thomas Scot I*, testifying that during the 1659 Parliament he had heard Scot boast of his part in the trial and death of Charles I, and ‘he was so far from repenting of the act that he did desire that when he died that a tombstone might be laid over him with this inscription, “here lies Thomas Scot, who adjudged the late king to die”’.28Ludlow, Mems. ii. 307; State Trials v. 1062-3. In subsequent years, Biddulph continued to prosper through his trading interests and purchased several new manors in Staffordshire.29VCH Staffs. iv. 147. He was elected MP for his native Lichfield in 1661 and was created a baronet in 1664. He died on 25 March 1683 at Greenwich and, according to the terms of his will, he was buried in Stowe parish church, near Lichfield, on 11 April.30Staffs. Parl. Hist. ii. 129-30; Shaw, Staffs. i. 352. His substantial estate was divided between his wife and surviving children, with several charitable bequests to the poor. He was succeeded by his son, Michael Biddulph II†.31PROB11/373/44.