NEWBURGH, Thomas (d. 1657), of Lifford, co. Tyrone.

Nothing is known of the origins of Thomas Newburgh, although he had clearly settled in Ulster before 1634, when his sister-in-law, drafting her will, left a small bequest to Thomas and his wife ‘now in Ireland’.9Genealogical Gleanings, ii. 858. He held lands near Omagh in co. Tyrone before 1641, and on the outbreak of the Irish rebellion he was chosen to command one of the foot companies ‘taken of those of the English nation’ raised to defend the Protestant stronghold of Londonderry, serving alongside such established settlers as Tristram Beresford* and Sir Thomas Staples.10Down Survey website; SP28/1B, ff. 568-9; CSP Dom. 1642-3, p. 298; PJ, ii. 429. In September 1642 Newburgh joined his colleagues in defending the conduct of the pro-royalist mayor, Robert Thornton, and in the winter of 1644-5 he himself became the focus of scandal, when he was accused of appropriating stores and money allocated for the relief of the inhabitants.11Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 119-21; SP28/252/1, ff. 111v-115v; SP28/253B/2; SP28/255, unfol; SP28/139/9; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 672. His company was almost certainly among those incorporated into the regiment formed by the new governor of Londonderry, Lord Folliot, in August 1645, and he may have been promoted to lieutenant colonel (his usual title in later years) before Folliot was relieved from his command in October 1648.12CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 60; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 555-7, 565; 1647-60, pp. 30, 32. Thereafter Newburgh’s movements are difficult to trace. Although he had served under the command of Sir Charles Coote, who had governed Londonderry in Folliot’s absence from the spring of 1647, it is doubtful that he was ever lieutenant colonel of Coote’s regiment (or that of his brother, Thomas Coote*), as has been claimed.13Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 186-7. Newburgh next appears as an administrator in Cromwellian Ulster. He had been appointed as a revenue commissioner of the province by the end of 1652; in the same period he worked with Colonel Robert Venables* in examining witnesses to the 1641 massacres in cos. Donegal and Londonderry; and he was appointed as assessment commissioner for Londonderry and Donegal from 1654, and for Tyrone from 1655.14CJ vii. 176b; TCD, MS 839, ff. 143, 154; An Assessment for Ire.

Newburgh’s status as a landowner in co. Tyrone and his position in the regional administration were probably sufficient to ensure his election as MP for the combined counties of Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone in 1654 and 1656, although he may have received support from Lord Folliot, who was present at the 1654 election, and was thought to have a degree of electoral influence later in the decade.15Civil Survey, iii. 354, 366-7; Merc. Politicus no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3710 (E.809.5); Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 625; C219/44, unfol.; C219/45, unfol.; HMC Egmont, i. 593. The only evidence of Newburgh’s parliamentary activity is his appointment to a single committee (to regulate the English chancery) on 5 October 1654, and there is no indication that he attended the 1656 Parliament at all.16CJ vii. 374a. Even though he was identified as one of the Irish MPs who supported the protectorate, he was not listed among those voting in favour of offering the crown to Oliver Cromwell* on 25 March 1657.17Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 13, 23 (E.935.5). Newburgh was almost certainly in Ireland at the time of this vote, as the day before he had been instructed by the Irish council to join Arthur Hill* and George Rawdon* in the investigation of Scottish ministers in Ulster who had refused to support a fast day to give thanks for the protector’s preservation from the Sindercombe plot.18Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 658-9. Despite his vigour in the spring of 1657, in the autumn Newburgh fell ill and died at Londonderry, and was buried in the cathedral church there on 11 September.19Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 625n; HMC Egmont, i. 593. He seems to have had two sons: Arthur, styled ‘of Lifford’, who leased lands in Ulster from the bishop of Derry in the 1660s and served as recusancy commissioner in co. Tyrone in the early 1670s; and Thomas, who was captain in the earl of Mountrath’s regiment after the Restoration, and may have been the Thomas Newburgh of Ballyhays, co. Cavan, who died in 1697.20The Bishopric of Derry ed. T.W. Moody and J.G. Simms (Dublin, 1968), i. 328, 381, 396-7, 416; HMC Ormonde, o.s. ii. 339; n.s. iii. 435; Irish Census, 1659, 626, 646; Irish Statute Staple Bks. 264; PROB11/437/425.