CHURCH, Barnard (1604-86), of Norwich, Norf.

Barnard Church was born in 1604 at Whinburgh, where his father, who was also the vicar of Witchford, was rector. Richard Church died in 1617, when his younger son was still aged only twelve.24Blomefield, Norf. iv. 141; Al. Cant.; Clergy of the C of E database. He left an elder son, Thomas, who died three years later while a student at Cambridge.25J. Venn, Biographical Hist. of Gonville and Caius College (Cambridge, 1897-1998), i. 235. The future MP meanwhile served his apprenticeship with a Norwich worsted weaver, Robert Atkyns, gaining his freedom from the Norwich corporation in June 1624.26Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 161. By 1629 he was employing several apprentices of his own.27Index of Indentures, 63, 166, 182. In the early 1630s he was sufficiently well-established as a clothier to be regularly named as a city member of the jury at the worsted weavers' inquests held before the mayor and in 1634 he was included on the committee created by the corporation to investigate the state of the weaving industry.28Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1630-1631, 68, 231, 247; Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1632-1635, 54, 182. By 1634 he was a resident of the parish of St George’s Colegate, where he was also churchwarden, although his rateable assessment (2d) suggests that his means were still modest.29Norwich Rate Bk. 71, 72. In 1639 he became a Norwich common councilman.30Index to Norwich City Officers, 36.

Church played no more than a minor indirect role in the civil war. He paid £4 towards the collection made in Norwich in 1643 to help fund the efforts by the parliamentarian forces to retake Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but the focus of his attention was much more local31J.T. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich (Oxford, 1979), 136, 203. That year he was nominated as a Norwich alderman by the Over-the-Water wards, but, as he had not yet served as sheriff, the election was disallowed.32Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 53n. He was therefore appointed as one of the city’s sheriffs the following year.33List of Sheriffs, 215. During his shrieval year, Church and, more especially, his fellow sheriff, Thomas Baret, briefly got into trouble with the House of Lords. On 22 February 1645 a parliamentarian army officer, Captain James Hobart, was arrested at Norwich by the sheriffs’ men for debt. Following an appeal by his brother, the Lords ordered on 19 March that Hobart be released on the grounds that he was in military service. However, ten days later the Lords changed their minds and agreed that Hobart could be re-arrested.34LJ vii. 279b, 231a, 288a, 289a, 291b. Meanwhile, as sheriff, Church was included by Parliament on most of the local commissions covering Norwich.35A. and O.

The death of the Norwich MP, Richard Harman*, in late 1646 also created a vacancy on the Norwich aldermanic bench. As the former objection to his promotion no longer applied, Church succeeded him as the alderman for the Colegate ward.36Index to Norwich City Officers, pp. xxxvi, 36. In the spring of 1648 the attempt to elect a royalist, Roger Mingay, as an alderman badly divided the corporation. Church conspicuously failed to support the parliamentarian hard-liners opposed to Mingay’s election, abstaining in the vote blocking his promotion.37Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 208. Church served as mayor in 1651-2.38Index to Norwich City Officers, pp. xxv, 36. The corporation commissioned a painting of him for its collection of civic portraits.39Norwich Castle Museum, Civic Portrait 64: F.

He was elected to Parliament for the first time for Norwich on 12 July 1654. In what was a fiercely contested poll (with Baret as his main rival), Church may have stood as an opponent of the new protectorate and, if so, he may have been working in conjunction with the other successful candidate, John Hobart*. Like most of the other Norfolk MPs, he had scruples about the demand from the lord protector that all MPs should swear not to alter the government. After meeting together on 12 September, most of them agreed to take this oath, with only Church, Hobart and Philip Wodehouse* holding out against doing so.40Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. Church presumably relented within days, as he was appointed on 23 September 1654 to the committee on the bill to eject scandalous ministers.41CJ vii. 370a. He otherwise left no trace on this Parliament’s proceedings.

On 1 May 1656 Church was one of the two aldermen nominated to serve as mayor of Norwich for the following year. This was a controversial move as Church, the more moderate, was, in theory, ineligible, having already held that office once before. The other man, Samuel Puckle, was then elected.42Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 213-14, 214n.

Thereby freed of a likely impediment, Church was again elected to Parliament with Hobart at Norwich on 20 August 1656. Unlike Hobart, he was then allowed to take his seat. During the first session of this Parliament Church was named to five committees, the first of which was the private naturalisation bill on 6 October.43CJ vii. 434b. He was given leave to bring in the bill to regulate the making of Norwich stuffs on 10 November and, having done so on 25 November, he was appointed to the committee appointed to consider it.44CJ vii. 452a, 459a. He was also named to the committees on the bill against customary oaths (7 Oct.), on the better management of those lands which had been sequestered from Catholics (22 Oct.) and on the bill for the better maintenance of the clergy at Exeter (9 Feb. 1657).45CJ vii. 435b, 444a, 488a.

Regarding the cause célèbre of James Naylor’s heresies, Church favoured the harshest possible measures. On 6 December he urged the House to set apart a day to ‘seek God’ for guidance in the case, as he thought it important that they treat this with the same seriousness as Joshua had punished the sin of Achan.46Burton’s Diary, i. 39. But on 10 December Church argurd for an immediate decision, so that no more time was wasted on the matter.47Burton’s Diary, i. 104. On 13 December, with the debates still dragging on, Church made a vehement attack on the Quakers generally, warning that they were ‘not only numerous but dangerous and the sooner we put a stop, the more glory we shall do to God and safety to this commonwealth.’ Worryingly, there had been an ‘incredible’ growth in their numbers since the time of the previous Parliament.48Burton’s Diary, i. 128.

Take heed what you do, for you judge not for men, but for God. We must one day answer to God for all things we do; even for this business; so that I cannot marvel at our care herein. The love of Christ constrains us. If we have love to Christ, we cannot suffer him to be dishonoured. We must not do our own will, but his will. I pray God reveal it to us what is his will. If he have said, the offender ought to die, we ought not to spare him.49Burton’s Diary, i. 128.

That Parliament, in the end, resisted the calls for Naylor to be executed.

On 24 December Parliament considered proposals intended to discourage pawnbrokers in the City of London handling stolen goods. When Lambarde Godfrey* and Thomas Clarges* argued that these should be extended to cover the wider London area, Church proposed that they should apply everywhere else as well.50Burton’s Diary, i. 225. On 31 December he vouched for the excuse from his fellow Norfolk MP, Robert Wilton*, for his absence from Parliament.51Burton’s Diary, i. 285. When the House debated on 19 January 1657 who to ask to preach the sermon at the next day of thanksgiving, Church suggested Matthew Mead, the lecturer of St Dunstan’s, Stepney. He expressed the hope that ‘charity might be better observed than when the fast was last kept in the House’, as, on that occasion, ‘nothing was given at the door to the poor’.52Burton’s Diary, i. 359-60. Church’s suggestion of Mead was ignored, however.53CJ vii. 481a. Five months later, on 10 June, Church warned against a delay in taking a decision on the apportionment of the assessment valuations.54Burton’s Diary, ii. 215. During the brief second session of this Parliament in early 1658, he was added to the committee on the bill for the registration of births, marriages and deaths (3 Feb.).55CJ vii. 591a. Later that same year the minister of Hackford with Whitwell, Sampson Tounesend, dedicated his book, The Christians Dayly Practice, to Church ‘because prayer is the duty you dearly love and daily practice’.56S. Tounesend, The Christians Dayly Practice [1658], sig. A2, A4v (E.1803.2).

In late January 1660 Church signed the Norfolk declaration for a free Parliament.57Address from Gentry of Norf. ed. Rye, 38. He retained office as an alderman after the Restoration. He and William Barnham* stood for re-election to Parliament in the Norwich election in April 1661, but they were both easily defeated. Later that year he was appointed as a commissioner for the voluntary gift to the king; his own contribution was £10.58Cal. of Frere MSS, 73, 81. By 1666 Church was living in the parish of St John de Sepulchre.59Norf. Geneal. xx. 82. Three years later he joined the other Norwich aldermen in writing to the secretary of state, Lord Arlington (Sir Henry Bennet†), asking that the king restrict theatrical performances at Norwich.60Misc. (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxvii. 1956), 29. In 1678 he donated £3 to the Norwich city library, which, together with his further donation of £11, was used to buy up to nine books, all in Latin and Greek.61Mins. Donation Bk. and Cat. of Norwich City Library, ed. C. Wilkins-Jones (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxxii. 2008), 93, 219-20, 246, 248-9, 255. Over the next few years he aligned himself with the whigs and in June 1682 he was one of the Norwich whig aldermen who wrote to the lord lieutenant of Norfolk, the 1st earl of Yarmouth (Robert Paston†), complaining about the irregular conduct of their tory colleagues.62CSP Dom. 1682, pp. 274-5; Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 286n. Church was dismissed from the corporation under the new charter of 22 March 1683.63Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 292n.

He died on 28 July 1686 and, having left instructions that he was to be buried according to the rites of the Church of England, was interred in St John de Sepulchre.64Blomefield, Norf. iv. 141; Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct. will, 581 Calthorpe. His epitaph concluded with the line, alluding to 1 Corinthians 14:1, ‘It is the work of charity to build up Christians. But it should not be the work of Christians to beat down charity, therefore follow after charity’. His will reflected that sentiment, for he made donations to the poor of Norwich and established a yearly sermon to be preached on his birthday (17 May). He also made generous bequests to his family, but, as his will makes no reference to them, he probably had no surviving children.65Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct. will, 581 Calthorpe.