ALLIN, Mathew (bef. 1606-67), of Melcombe Regis, Dorset.

The Allin family was already firmly established at Melcombe Regis in Dorset during the reign of Elizabeth I, and Mathew’s father, John Allin, had been mayor of the borough at the time of its unification with neighbouring Weymouth in 1571.12Weymouth Charters ed. Moule, 23, 35. Mathew Allin, a brewer by trade, inherited this family influence. He held lands in the borough and was serving as alderman by 1623.13Vis. Dorset, 1623, 2. But his relationship with the corporation was not always amicable. In 1617 he was ordered to remove a furze-rick from his land, and in the following year he opposed attempts to enforce Sunday observance and suppress drunkenness, saying ‘that the course Mr Mayor did take would drive all men out of the town’.14Weymouth Charters ed. Moule, 55, 57. The latter incident would also suggest that Allin was out of sympathy with the godly elements which had come to dominate Jacobean Weymouth. Allin’s behavior did not improve with age. In October 1631 he was fined – and not for the first time – for failing to build a proper quay on the edge of his land, and allowing rubbish to wash into the port, and he was also presented for fly-tipping in the cemetery attached to the town’s chapel.15Weymouth Charters ed. Moule, 71-2.

Despite his occasional disagreements with the rulers of the town, Allin was a regular attender at corporation meetings in the 1620s and 1630s, and performed such offices as auditor and bailiff.16Weymouth Min. Bks. 13-23. He was appointed to other positions of trust in the same period: he was keeper of the keys to the town chest in 1627, and joined David Giear and Francis Gape on missions to London concerning the town’s trading case against Exeter in 1630 and 1632.17Weymouth Min. Bks. 13, 18, 22. David Giear seems to have been Allin’s principal ally in Weymouth during this period, and Allin’s appointment as bailiff in 1628 coincided with Giear’s term as mayor. But when David Giear died in 1633, his interest was inherited by his brother, Thomas Giear*, who was no friend of Allin.18Weymouth Min. Bks. 14. Over the next few years, as Thomas Giear’s importance grew, Allin was left out in the cold. He was nominated in mayoral elections in 1635, 1636, 1637, 1638, 1640 and 1641, but was defeated on each occasion.19Weymouth Min. Bks. 34, 38, 41, 43, 48, 50. His continuing role in the corporation was limited to serving as Ship-Money assessor in 1639 and overseer of the poor in 1640.20Weymouth Min. Bks. 44, 47. Allin’s estrangement from the most influential group in the corporation belies the fact that he was at this time one of the most prosperous men in the borough. In December 1639 he purchased plots of land in both Weymouth and Melcombe for £130, and, according to the 1641 assessments, he was one of the wealthiest land-holders in the borough.21C54/3199; E179/105/331 m. 1d.

Allin started to recover his political position within Weymouth when the corporation became divided in the months before the outbreak of the civil war. In January 1641 he was ordered to travel to Westminster to present Weymouth’s grievances to Parliament, and he was at last elected mayor of Weymouth in September 1642.22Weymouth Min. Bks. 50; Add. 34326, f. 1. By this time Allin was already marked as a supporter of Parliament. He did not join the town clerk, Francis Gape, and others in resisting the militia commissioners in previous summer.23CJ ii. 742b-743a. Instead, Allin took an active role in supplying money and goods to the parliamentarian garrison in the town, lending £350 for the town’s defence in the early months of the civil war.24Add. 34326, f. 1. In the summer of 1643, when the royalists dominated the west, James Giear (probably Thomas’s nephew) plundered Allin’s house, taking all the weapons he could find.25CCAM 1045. Allin later claimed that he had been indicted for treason by the king for resisting the levying of customs dues in the town, and that he had been imprisoned for a year by the royalists.26Add. 34326, f. 1. He received compensation from borough funds in 1644 and 1645, when the immediate danger from the royalists had passed.27Weymouth Min. Bks. 52, 53. In October 1646, the county committee also ordered that Allin be paid for beer supplied to the Weymouth garrison in 1645 and 1646.28Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 31. Allin’s three sons fought for Parliament; one of them, John Allin, served as captain in the Weymouth garrison in the mid-1640s, and possibly accompanied the local troops sent to Ireland under Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*) in June 1646.29Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 556; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 457. Captain John Allin was made freeman of the borough in 1646, and thereafter held lucrative positions within the corporation.30Weymouth Min. Bks. 59-64.

Despite his proven loyalty to Parliament, at the end of the first civil war Allin’s position in Weymouth was far from secure. In the elections for a new recorder in October 1645 he was a supporter of the unsuccessful candidate, William Savage, while the man chosen, Dr John Bond* (eldest son of Denis Bond*), was backed by a clique which included Thomas Waltham, the ageing Thomas Giear, and Allin’s principal persecutor in 1643, James Giear.31Weymouth Min. Bks. 55. Nevertheless, on 3 November 1645 the double-borough held recruiter elections, and Allin was returned as replacement for the disabled royalist, Sir John Strangways*.32C219/43/154. Allin came third in the list of seven candidates for the four seats available, receiving 51 votes from a total of 324 cast.33Weymouth Min. Bks. 56. Allin’s parliamentary career is obscured by confusion with the prominent Independent, Francis Allein*. Allin’s views seem very different to those of Allein, however. He took the Covenant soon after his arrival in Westminster, on 25 March 1646.34CJ iv. 489a. He seems to have been identified with the Presbyterian faction in Parliament, and was secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648.35A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.52); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 366.

The Purge marked the end of Allin’s political career. He seems to have played no further part in Weymouth affairs, and did not seem to benefit from the disgrace of his former enemy, James Giear, who was accused in March 1649 of having supported the king in the first civil war. The case was still running in 1652, when Allin was summoned to London as a witness for the prosecution.36CCAM 1045. By this time it had become clear that the moneys owed to Allin were unlikely to be paid, and he petitioned Parliament to reclaim them. He complained that his contributions to the defence of the town and his losses during the war amounted to £4,500, that his debts had forced him to mortgage his estate, and that he had been imprisoned for other outstanding sums. He begged for relief, protesting that ‘unless your favour timely interpose ... your petitioner will be exposed to inevitable ruin’.37Add. 34326, f. 1. The response to this plea was slow in coming. On 3 January 1654 the protectoral council instructed the Dorset landowner, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, and the former governor of Weymouth, William Sydenham*, to report on Allin’s case.38CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 345. Nothing had transpired by January 1656, when Mathew Allin again approached the committee for petitions, begging assistance, saying that he had been proclaimed a traitor and indicted for his life by the king, and that he remained a prisoner for debt.39CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 152.

It was perhaps no coincidence that the delay in Allin’s case coincided with the period when his adversaries, including James Giear and Thomas Waltham, had regained control of Weymouth. The Restoration did not improve the situation. There is no mention of Allin in the 1662-4 hearth tax returns, which suggests that he had been unable to recover any of the properties he had owned in the town before 1642.40Dorset Hearth Tax, passim. He died before September 1667, when the administration of his will passed the prerogative court.41Som. and Dorset N. and Q. v. 140.