BOND, Elias (1596-1680), of Tyneham and Wareham, Dorset.

Elias Bond, the younger brother of the prominent politician, Denis Bond*, started his career in trade, and was elected as a freeman of Weymouth by 1617, when he was just 21.11Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 451. In the years before the civil war, Bond built up his wealth and local influence, aided by his marriage to a daughter of Francis Chaldecott of East Whiteway in Purbeck in 1636, and his acquisition in the next few years of the estates of East Tyneham and South Egleston in the same locality.12Hutchins, Dorset, i. 602-3, 618, 621. In the 1641 assessments he was rated at £4 for goods and £100 for land in Bovington and Tyneham, and in the same year was admitted as free burgess of the nearby borough of Poole.13E179/7105/329, m. 3d; E179/105/334, m. 3; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 32. By this time Bond, like his brother, had become known as an opponent of the crown. He was listed as a ship money defaulter in 1635 and 1637.14SP16/319/89; E179/272/54. He was also a supporter of the Irish contribution in May 1642, a cause backed by Denis Bond, who was an Irish adventurer to the tune of £2,000.15SP28/191, unfol.; J.R. MacCormack, ‘The Irish Adventurers and the English Civil War’, IHS x. 45. With his family ties and local influence, Bond was perhaps a predictable choice as a member of the Dorset county committee established in July 1644.16Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, p. xii. The surviving evidence shows Bond signing warrants in the summer and winter of 1644-5,17Add. 29319, ff. 15-25; PRO30/24/2, f. 72/1. while the minute books of the committee record his consistent attendance at meetings from 1646 to 1650.18Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 12-561, passim.

Although he does not seem to have had any previous military experience, when Portland fell to Parliament in the spring of 1646 Bond was given charge of the island and its strategically important castle, which dominated Weymouth Bay. The appointment encountered some opposition at Westminster. The original proposal came from the House of Lords on 17 April 1646, which urged the Commons to approve Bond’s appointment as governor of Portland.19LJ viii. 276a. The suggestion was not ratified by the lower House, however, and the ordinance of both Houses issued on 22 April denied Bond the governorship, instead appointing him to the junior position as captain of Portland Castle.20LJ viii. 279a, 281b. A compromise was reached in mid-May 1646, when Bond was approved as captain of the castle and lieutenant of the Isle of Portland; but this appointment was not ratified until 4 June 1647.21LJ viii. 316a, 318a, 319a; LJ ix. 238a. This delay, and the change of title, suggest that Bond’s promotion was being obstructed by the Presbyterian faction in the Commons, which was beginning to challenge the power of the Independent supporters of the New Model, a group which included Denis Bond. Elias and Denis Bond were reported to be in close contact in the following October, over the disputed Shaftesbury election, and it is probable that they had co-operated on other issues at an earlier date, as Elias Bond had almost certainly served as his brother’s representative on the county committee since its inception.22Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 58v.

Despite the fluctuations of faction at Westminster in the late 1640s, Bond retained his position in the Dorset administration. He collected compositions and examined accounts of sequestered estates for the county treasurer in 1647, and acted as an arbitrator in a dispute at Charleton in 1648.23Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 13v; Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 148, 333. The material benefits of involvement with the county committee became apparent in the payment of military arrears. In 1647 the committee ordered the payment of £121 to Bond to repay a loan and in compensation for livestock requisitioned by the garrison at Poole.24Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 128. In 1648 Bond was granted the rents of the estate of the recusant Wells family at Godmison at half their yearly value of £60.25Add. 8845, f. 7v. Later in the same year, the committee ordered the reimbursement of £10 spent by Bond on provisions.26Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 398-9. Although these payments were relatively small, the ease with which Bond gained repayments and rewards contrasts strongly with the experience of other local commanders, such as John Fitzjames*, who lacked Bond’s influence on the county committee and were unable to secure similarly modest amounts.27Alnwick, Northumberland MS 548, f. 47r-v.

The course of Elias Bond’s career after the execution of the king is difficult to trace. His reticence does not seem to have reflected active disapproval of the republican regime, however, as he continued to sit on the county committee until it was dissolved in 1650, and he was named as assessment commissioner for Dorset in 1649, 1650, 1652, 1653 and 1657.28Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 494-561; A. and O.; An Act for an Assessment (1653, E.1062.28). In 1659, the year after Denis Bond’s death, Elias Bond was elected as MP for the borough of Wareham, which bordered the Isle of Purbeck. He does not appear to have spoken in Parliament, and was not named to any committees, despite the former prominence of his brother in the protectoral regime. After the Restoration, Bond took no further part in public life, and was living in his town house at Wareham at the time of the 1664 hearth tax assessments.29Dorset Hearth Tax, 74. On the death of his first wife in 1670, he married Joan Gerard of Wareham, the ceremony taking place as nearby East Stoke parish church.30Hutchins, Dorset, i. 602-3. Bond died in November 1680 and was buried in wool (according to law, but also as befitted a merchant in that commodity) at Steeple church.31Dorset RO, Ad/Dt/A/1681; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 602-3. Bond seems to have died without direct heirs, the estate passing to his nephew, William Bond, the younger son of Denis Bond.32Hutchins, Dorset, i. 618.