ATKIN, Thomas (d. 1669), of Lime Street, London.

Early life

This MP’s father, John, was a King’s Lynn mercer who served twice (1607-8, 1615-16) as the mayor of that town.41Cal. Lynn Freemen, 119, 134, 140; Le Strange, Norf. Official Lists, 193, 194; King’s Lynn Port Bks. 1610-1614, ed. G.A. Metters (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxxiii. 2009), 53; PROB 11/131, f. 13v. Thomas was probably the middle of three sons, with William being his elder brother and Seth the youngest. Their sister, Margery, married John Percival*.42PROB 11/141, f. 472v. William seems to have inherited their father’s commercial interests in King’s Lynn and he too became one of the town’s aldermen. When William died in 1623, he left his warehouse at King’s Lynn to Thomas, who was also to receive his house there after the deaths of their mother and his widow.43PROB 11/141, ff. 472v. However, Thomas made his fortune not in King’s Lynn, but in Norwich and later in London. In 1637 it was said that he had been resident in Norwich for 30 years.44PC 2/48, p. 75. This may have been an underestimate, for, having completed his apprenticeship to a Norwich grocer, Samuel Man, Thomas was admitted as a freeman of the city’s corporation in March 1610.45Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 76. A second apprenticeship to a London Mercer, Thomas Wasse, enabled him to become a London freeman three years later.46Woodhead, Rulers of London, 20. At about the same time, Atkin was elected as a councillor in Norwich, the first step in his civic career in that city.47Index to Norwich City Officers, 6. In 1627, following a particularly acrimonious election, he was chosen as one of the Norwich sheriffs.48List of Sheriffs, 214; Evans, Norwich, 75. Two years later he was promoted to the aldermanic bench.49Index to Norwich City Officers, 6. In 1633 he and several other aldermen were sent to wait on the bishop of Norwich, Richard Corbet, to discuss a rating dispute involving the local clergy.50Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1632-1635, 58. The following year he was included on their committee to investigate the state of the worsted weaving industry, a subject in which Atkin probably had a direct commercial interest and which would become one of the recurring themes of his career in Parliament.51Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1632-1635, 182. His colleagues also appointed him in 1635 to oversee the collection of Ship Money within the city limits.52Mins. Norwich Ct. of Mayoralty, 1632-1635, 202, 208, 218.

The donation by Atkin of several religious books, including a set of the works of Philip Melanchthon, to the Norwich city library in 1618 constitutes early evidence of his confirmed Protestant piety.53Mins., Donation Bk. and Cat. of Norwich City Library, ed. C. Wilkins-Jones (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxxii. 2008), 200. This was a reputation he maintained. In 1630 he was one of the group of Norfolk godly gentlemen who, modelling themselves on the London-based feoffees for impropriations, formed a trust to purchase impropriations within that county, with the aim of ensuring that suitable clergymen were then appointed to those livings.54Evans, Norwich, 87 and n. Later in 1637 Atkin was also said to have been reluctant to prosecute a number of Norwich citizens who refused to obey the attempts by the bishop, Matthew Wren, to enforce Laudian orthodoxy within the city.55CSP Dom. 1637, p. 219.

London radical 1637-45

Despite his long residence in Norwich, in 1637 Atkin was named as one of the sheriffs of London.56List of Sheriffs, 206. The Norwich corporation objected to this appointment, however, complaining to the privy council that he was due to serve his turn as their mayor the following year. They also suggested that his departure from Norwich would impoverish the ‘many poor artificers’ that he employed.57PC 2/48, p. 75. The corporation of London responded that any interference in their free choice of a sheriff would breach their ancient and well entrenched privileges and it was that argument that the privy council upheld on 30 June 1637.58PC 2/48, pp. 75-6. Although headhunted by the Londoners, Atkin had his own reasons for wishing to leave Norwich. He was already at odds with Bishop Wren and a dispute with the lord lieutenant, Lord Maltravers, two years earlier for refusing to serve on the musters for the county which had proved ‘near his undoing’ was also said to have contributed to Atkin’s decision.59CSP Dom. 1637, p. 219; SP 16/361; Add. 15903, f. 77; The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 2.

One royalist pamphleteer would later cite Atkin’s appointment as an alderman as an example of how the disaffected members of the London corporation had recruited allies from elsewhere to join them on the corporation.60A Lttr. from Mercurius Civicus to Mercurius Rusticus (1643), 4 (E.65.32). As sheriff, Atkin was responsible for the third Ship Money writ in London but his failure to collect arrears led to his appearance before the privy council.61CSP Dom. 1639, p. 517; 1639-40, pp. 119-20, 463. He later alleged that, on that occasion, ‘No man was so violent against him as the archbishop’.62LJ vi. 468a. He meantime served for the first time as master of the Mercers’ Company.63Doolittle, Mercers’ Co. 68. A vacancy in Farringdon Ward Without in September 1638 towards the end of his year in office as sheriff facilitated the customary promotion to become a London alderman. Those who nominated him included Thomas Soame* and the other sheriff, Edward Rudge.64Beaven, Aldermen, i. 148.

Any adverse reaction by the Norwich corporation to Atkin’s departure in 1637 had disappeared by March 1640 when the city’s freemen elected him as one of their MPs. Atkin’s main contribution to this Parliament came on 18 April, when he presented the Norwich petition against the innovations of Bishop Wren to the Commons.65Aston’s Diary, 12. His only committee appointment related to the bill concerning needle makers and wiredrawers (1 May).66CJ ii. 17b. Following the dissolution, the king demanded a loan of £200,000 to pay for a renewal of war against the Scottish Covenanters. Atkin was imprisoned for his refusal to supply a list of the wealthier inhabitants of his ward and he and Thomas Soame* were among four aldermen whom the attorney general, Sir John Bankes†, then prosecuted in the court of star chamber.67CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 142, 155. Again, Atkin particularly blamed Laud.68LJ vi. 468a. This made Atkin a popular figure in the City and marked his emergence as a City radical. He was released from prison in May 1640, after the London mob had first tried to free him.69Winthrop Pprs. iv. 248.

By 1641 Atkin was viewed as one of the leading members of the faction of more radical aldermen who secured the return of their supporters in that year’s elections for the common council.70Lttr. from Mercurius Civicus, 15. In January 1642, following the king’s failure to arrest the Five Members, Atkin was included both on the emergency committee of safety and on the new militia committee which superseded it.71LMA, COL/CC/01/01/041, ff. 11, 17v. The Commons meanwhile asked the corporation of London for a loan of £100,000 to help suppress the Irish rebellion. Atkin led the delegation that presented their reply to the Commons on 25 January. This indicated that they were most reluctant to provide this money, because previous loans were still to be repaid and because those loans had been spent with few obvious results. They also demanded that Parliament disarm all Catholics in England.72PJ i. 161-2, 169; LJ iv. 537b-539a. Atkin did not then invest in the Irish Adventure. On 10 June he was among the members of the London militia committee who accompanied Philip Skippon* when he assured the Commons that they would ignore the king’s proclamation against the Militia Ordinance.73PJ iii. 59. When the lord mayor, Sir Richard Gurney, went ahead and proclaimed the king’s commission of array, he was impeached by the Commons. Atkin was among the aldermen who informed the Lords on 20 July that they could find no precedent for naming a temporary replacement themselves.74Eg. 1048, f. 17; LJ v. 229b. He also gave evidence against Gurney at his trial before the Lords on 29 July, testifying that there had been some discussion of a London petition against the Militia Ordinance.75LJ v. 246b-247a. In January 1643 Atkin was one of seven feoffees named in the bill to administer the forfeited estates of the 12 impeached bishops, although this bill was never passed.76CJ ii. 936b.

Atkin had probably been one of the new colonels appointed to command the London trained bands in 1642 and he was certainly the colonel of the Red regiment by the muster of September 1643.77Dillon, ‘MS list of officers’, 134. The appointment two months earlier of Sir William Waller* as the commander of a new army to be raised in Parliament had raised questions about his powers over the existing trained bands and over Skippon as their sergeant-major-general. Atkin headed the delegation sent by the corporation of London to Westminster on 7 August 1643 with their own proposals concerning the London militia. The Commons referred these to the London militia committee and confirmed Skippon’s existing rights.78CJ iii. 197a-b; Harl. 165, f. 146v. Later that month the Red regiment was part of the force under Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex that relieved Gloucester and soon after they fought with Skippon at the first battle of Newbury (20 Sept).79H. Foster, A True and Exact account of the marchings of the two regts. (1643); W. Emberton, Skippon’s Brave Boys (Buckingham, 1984), 73-81. There is no evidence that Atkin accompanied them on campaign. Indeed, the standard insinuation against him was that of cowardice, for he was said, at some point before September 1643, to have soiled himself while on parade with his men at Tothill Fields.80Mercurius Aulicus (24-30 Sept. 1643), 545. Incontinence thus became Atkin’s main satiric attribute.81Hosanna: or, A Song of Thanks-giving (1649), 1 (E.559.11); The Game is up (1659), 3 (E.1005.12); A Seasonable Speech, Made by Alderman Atkins In the Rump Parliament (1660), 4 (E.1013.15). But if he did not actually fight, he could support Parliament financially. During 1642 and 1643 he lent a total of £1,400 to Parliament, either directly or via the corporation of London.82W.P. Harper, 'Public borrowing 1640-60' (London Univ. M.A. thesis, 1927), app. B. Some might have felt that these were loans he could well afford, given that press gossip also linked him to profiteering in food supplies.83Mercurius Aulicus (24-30 Sept. 1643), 545. In March 1644 he gave evidence as a witness at the trial of Archbishop Laud, retelling his experiences before the privy council when questioned about his Ship Money arrears and the 1640 loan.84LJ vi. 468a.

The zenith of Atkin’s political career came in 1644 when he was appointed as the lord mayor of London. This was a moment of great difficulty for the City, given that its economy had been much disrupted by the civil war and that it had played a disproportionate role in financing the parliamentarian war effort. His time as lord mayor was marked, not necessarily as a result of his own influence, by an increase in the power of the political Presbyterians in the corporation’s affairs.85V. Pearl, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1961), 312. One of its most notable events was the feast for Parliament held at Grocers’ Hall on 19 June 1645 to celebrate the victory at Naseby, at which Atkin presided.86Harl. 166, f. 220. Unusually, his mayoral year coincided with a second term as master of his livery company.87Doolittle, Mercers’ Co. 68.

Recruiter MP 1645-8

The completion of Atkin’s year in office made it possible for him to accept the offer of a seat in Parliament from his old constituency. The writ for the recruiter election at Norwich was moved on 30 September 1645 and seven weeks later, on 19 November, the Norwich freemen chose Atkin as their new MP.88Add. 15903, f. 61. Five years later he would write to the mayor of Norwich, Matthew Linsey, to complain that the corporation had only paid him a total of £100 in wages.89Add. 22620, f. 146; Add. 15903, f. 77. He reminded Linsey that at the time of his election

I was very sensible of the burthen, and I did use all means I could possible to have avoided it, knowing it would take me off from my employment I were then in, and also hinder me in any further way of livelihood…90Add. 15903, f. 77.

Atkin could certainly claim to have been a conscientious constituency MP. Almost 60 letters written by him to the successive mayors of Norwich survive. That series, which dates mainly from 1646-7 and 1649-50, may well be incomplete and, although he was probably not writing weekly, it indicates that he made every effort to keep the Norwich corporation fully informed about events at Westminster. He also made every effort to raise their concerns in Parliament.

On entering the Commons Atkin was, in religious terms, a Presbyterian. He appears to have had close links with such moderate ministers as Cornelius Burgess, Simeon Ashe and Thomas Case to whom he carried messages from the Commons, including invitations for them to preach to MPs.91CJ iv. 394b, v. 155a, 160b, 613a. In January 1647 he expressed support for the Presbyterian John Carter, minister of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich.92Add. 22620, f. 48. He disapproved of mechanic preachers and so then commended the action taken by the Norwich corporation to control non-ordained preaching ministers.93Add. 22620, f. 45.

When the petition from the London ministers complaining of defects in the bill for church government and in the clauses in the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for trying elders was presented to the Commons on 19 November 1645, Atkins and Thomas Hoyle* were sent to urge the London ministers to return to their parishes.94CJ iv. 348b. Two days later he was on the delegation despatched to inform the lord mayor that forces from the London brigade had been sent to Uxbridge to counter the threat of raiding parties from the royalist army.95CJ iv. 350a. The next day he was included on the committee to settle the establishment of the Abingdon garrison.96CJ iv. 351a. On 4 December he was named to the committee on the London militia.97CJ iv. 365a. When the London militia committee appeared at Westminster on 6 January 1646, Atkin was among MPs appointed to meet with them.98CJ iv. 398a. He took the Covenant on 31 December.99CJ iv. 393a. One of those sent on 13 February 1646 to request full particulars of the meeting between the common council and the Scottish commissioners, he acted as teller with Zouche Tate* in the minority against Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* against proceeding to investigate the account by Francis Allein* of the encounter (21 Feb.).100CJ iv. 439b, 449a.

By the summer of 1646 the war was almost over and the king had already given himself up to the Scots. Atkin seems to have supported the latest round of negotiations with the king. On 12 June he was sent to urge the Lords to hasten the dispatch of the new set of peace proposals (the Newcastle Propositions) and, when these were finalised the following month, he sent a copy of them to the Norwich corporation.101CJ iv. 574b; LJ viii. 371b; Add. 22620, f. 69. The departure of the Scottish army from England now depended on raising the money to pay them off. Atkin was included on the committee sent to the City on 5 September to ask the London corporation to advance the first instalment of £200,000.102CJ iv. 663a-b. Using this London loan as an example to be emulated, he subsequently encouraged the Norwich corporation to make its own contributions to the loan to be secured against the sales of bishops’ lands.103Add. 22620, ff. 82, 88; Add. 15903, f. 61. He personally subscribed £658 8s 2d on 20 November.104Add. 15903, f. 61. Twice that autumn he again acted as a messenger to the Lords, carrying to them on 28 August the order to set aside a day of thanksgiving for the reduction of the remaining royalist garrisons and delivering the bill for the relief of maimed soldiers on 11 September.105CJ iv. 656b, 667b; LJ viii. 474a. Meanwhile, on 20 August, he and Isaac Penington* had informed the lord mayor of the orders against the spread of plague.106CJ iv. 649b. In late November the Committee for Compounding was ordered to pay £1,000 to Atkin, Miles Corbett* and John Spelman* for the garrison at King’s Lynn.107CJ iv. 731b. By late January 1647, when the final preparations were being made for the Scots to hand over Charles I to the parliamentary commissioners at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Atkin prayed that ‘the Lord direct the king that he may at last comply with his Parliament.’108Add. 22620, f. 45. A fortnight later, by which time the king had been removed to Holdenby, he hoped that Charles would ‘join with the two Houses, as is desired’.109Add. 22620, f. 54.

Atkin had meanwhile found himself drawn into the dispute between Norwich and the rest of the county over Norwich’s claim that it had been overrated for its share of the Norfolk assessments. He and Richard Harman* presented the corporation’s letter on the subject to the committee of the Eastern Association at Westminster in June 1646.110Add. 22620, ff. 60, 64. This failed to convince the committee, which prepared a letter ordering that Norwich pay the full sum. Atkin subsequently assured the mayor, Henry Watts, that he had told the committee that Norwich would be unable to pay and so had refused to send the letter.111Add. 22620, f. 66. By late August, however, he was advising Watts that it would be unwise for the city to petition Parliament about this at this time ‘in regard of the great business of the kingdom’, although a couple of weeks later he told Watts that, if required, he would raise the matter in the House.112Add. 22620, ff. 76, 82. His advice to the Norwich corporation to subscribe to the loan for the Scots may, in part, have been an attempt to dissuade the committee for the Eastern Association from summoning several of the aldermen to Westminster to explain their recalcitrance over this.113Add. 22620, ff. 82, 84, 88, 91. Another issue of immediate concern to his constituency was the state of the Norfolk weaving industry. He was included on the committee to consider the petition from the Norwich clothiers and woollen manufacturers, read in the Commons on 13 November 1646.114CJ iv. 722a. (He was also named to the committee on the petition from the London weavers received the following May.115CJ v. 187a.) A third Norwich preoccupation was the proposal to merge several of the city’s smaller parishes. Atkin repeatedly told the mayor from the summer of 1646 onwards that he was raising the issue in the Commons and in late July he even claimed that Speaker Lenthall had told him that time would soon be found.116Add. 22620, ff. 64, 69, 94. But Atkin got nowhere with this. In August 1648 he had to assure the mayor that he had not forgotten about it.117Add. 22620, f. 111.

On 4 December 1646 Atkin was among those MPs sent to ask the common council of London to speed up the collection of assessment arrears for the payment of the army; and later to negotiate a loan for its disbandment.118CJ iv. 738a Following the attacks on the excise office in Smithfield on 15 February 1647, he and the London MPs attended on the lord mayor on behalf of the Commons to ask that all necessary measures should be taken to prevent such tumults.119CJ v. 89a. On 1 March 1647 Atkin, John Venn* and Samuel Vassall* were told to thank the London apprentices for their ‘expressions of affection to Parliament’.120CJ v. 102b. Six weeks later, on 16 April, this same trio were sent to ask the lord mayor to summon a meeting of the common council to discuss a request for an urgent loan of £200,000 to assist the disbandment of the army. A month later Atkin and others informed the common council that the legislation to secure the repayment of this money had now been passed.121CJ v. 144b, 172b.

Atkin was among those MPs, ousted from the London militia committee, who received the thanks of the House on 7 May 1647.122CJ v. 161a, 166a. A month later, on 4 June, Atkin, Sir Henry Vane I* and Speaker Lenthall reported that they had been assaulted in Westminster Hall by disbanded soldiers demanding their arrears.123Add. 31116, pp. 622-3. Atkin was subsequently appointed to one of the committees to consider the soldiers’ grievances.124CJ v. 210b. On 25 June, as the army approached London, he was sent to the militia committee to request a guard for Parliament.125CJ v. 223b, 239b. In response to the City petition to extend the ordinance for raising horse to defend the capital, Atkin carried to the Lords on 10 July the bill to limit the increase to one regiment of no more than 600 horse together with that empowering the militia committee to make searches.126CJ v. 236b, 240a; LJ ix. 325a. The same day he was ordered to bring in a bill requiring the removal of reduced soldiers from the lines of communication and was later sent to the lord mayor on 17 July to ensure its enforcement.127CJ v. 240b, 248b, 249b. Following the apprentices’ petition calling for an accommodation with the king, Atkin, with Sir John Danvers* and Venn, was sent on 13 July to inform them that the House would consider the petition at a ‘convenient time’.128CJ v. 243a. On 22 July he was named to a committee to investigate the London Presbyterians’ ‘engagement’ in favour of a personal treaty with the king and was one of those sent by the Commons on 24 July to inform the City authorities that anyone promoting the engagement would be deemed guilty of high treason.129CJ v. 254a, 256b, 257b. However, Atkin remained at Westminster when the Speakers and the Independents fled to the army and on 2 August the other MPs still at Westminster sent Atkin and Samuel Vassall to ask the lord mayor to summon a meeting of the common council so that it could be informed that they too wished to bring the king to London.130CJ v. 264b. That same day he was also named to the committee to investigate the Presbyterian ‘riots’ on 26 July.131CJ v. 265a. The entry of the army into London later that week was therefore the worst possible outcome.

With the army now in full control of the capital, Atkin was sent to the lord mayor again on 21 August to arrange a meeting between the Army Committee and the common council to negotiate a loan for the advance of a month’s pay for the soldiers.132CJ v. 280b. The next time he acted as a messenger to the City was on 25 September when he informed the aldermen that, having been arrested by the Commons, the lord mayor, Sir John Gayer was a prisoner in the Tower.133CJ v. 317a. He had in the meantime been appointed to the new London militia committee.134CJ v. 290a; A. and O. On 29 November he and Venn were sent to thank them ‘for their seasonable care of the safety and secure sitting of the Parliament’.135CJ v. 372b.

In October 1647 Atkin and Francis Allein were among the group of London merchants willing to lend money to Parliament, secured against the excise, to help pay the army.136LJ ix. 472b. Atkin was a member of the joint committee sent on 20 November to convey to the City the army grandees’ anger at their refusal to pay the soldiers and to warn of the threat to quarter a regiment of foot in the City unless the assessment arrears were collected.137CJ v. 365a. He later carried the ordinance for collecting the arrears to the Lords (26 Nov.).138CJ v. 369b, 370a; LJ ix. 543b. With other London MPs, he took charge of publicising and enforcing the amendments to the ordinance for electing London municipal officers in the capital (17 Dec.).139CJ v. 390b. He was a member of the committee to extend the powers of the Westminster militia committee (which had remained loyal to the army) and on 15 January 1648 carried the resulting bill, along with the additional bill for removing delinquents from the lines of communication, to the Lords.140CJ v. 413a, 433b; LJ ix. 662a. He was named to the committees to improve the payment of London tithes (9 Feb. 1648) and for an additional ordinance for stricter observance of the Lord’s Day (23 Feb.).141CJ v. 460b, 471a.

Events in Norwich claimed Atkin's attention during the spring of 1648. In March he successfully piloted the bill to prevent the election of royalists to civic office in Norwich through the Commons and then, on 13 March, carried it to the Lords.142CJ v. 489b, 493a. With Miles Corbett*, he was ordered on 18 April to thank the sheriff and other inhabitants for their good affections to Parliament, after the mayor of Norwich, John Utting, had attempted to defy Parliament.143CJ v. 535a. Following the riot in the city he was ordered on 27 April to ensure that the orders of the House concerning Norwich were put into execution.144CJ v. 546b. Later that year the clerk of the Norfolk assizes circuit was told to pass the evidence against the rioters on to Atkin so that the Norwich justices of the peace could bring prosecutions against them.145CJ vi. 92a. Given leave to go into the country on 8 May, Atkin was added to a committee two days later, but was inactive thereafter until 26 June.146CJ v. 553b, 556a. Yet so associated was he with communications sent from Parliament to the corporation of London that when a spoof speech allegedly given when a delegation of MPs warned Londoners of the threat from the Kentish uprising, it appeared under Atkin’s name.147Reverend Alderman Atkins (The Shit-breech) His Speech (1648) (E.447.12). In mid-August he was named to the committee on the bill to settle the militia throughout the kingdom (17 Aug.).148CJ v. 673b. Following Parliament’s victories against the Scots, he was one of those appointed on 26 August to prepare a collection of the ‘late great mercies’ for a day of thanksgiving.149CJ v. 683b. He was teller on 3 October for the minority that wanted Coventry and Warwickshire to be listed separately in the bill for settling the militia.150CJ vi. 42b. A month later, on 2 November, he was asked to take care of the order to the London ministers to celebrate as usual the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, which that year fell on a Sunday.151CJ vi. 67b. The following day he went to the lord mayor to request a meeting of common council to negotiate a loan of £4,000 to cover the expenses of the Newport treaty.152CJ vi. 68b. On 25 November, when MPs were instructed to write to the provinces to speed up the assessment collections, Atkin and Erasmus Earle* were assigned the task of writing to Norwich.153CJ vi. 88a.

Rumper 1648-53

Following Pride’s Purge Atkin's name does not appear on committee lists again until 23 December, when he was appointed to that to consider how to proceed in justice against the king.154CJ vi. 103a. He took the dissent to the vote of 5 December two days later. 155PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, p. 490; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660, E.1013.22), 21. He was then included on the committees on oaths (28 Dec.).156CJ vi. 105b. Although he was included on the committee on the bill creating the high court of justice (29 Dec.) and was named as one of the judges in that bill, he took no part in the king’s trial.157CJ vi. 106a; A. and O. Apart from being nominated to the Committee for Compounding (1 Jan.) and the committee for the sale of dean and chapter lands (12 Jan.), he left no trace on the Journal until after Charles I had been executed.158CJ vi. 107b, 113b, 116a. In other words, Atkin was pointedly disassociating himself from the regicide. Yet thereafter he quickly resumed his seat in Parliament and such was his prominence in the purged House that he was said to have been ‘a great reverencer of the Rump’.159Mystery of the Good Old Cause, 2. He also had no hesitation in taking the Engagement and later that year, when it was offered to the London aldermen, he made a point of taking it again as an example to them. Deploying this tactic again at Norwich, he was disappointed to hear that some were reluctant to comply.160Add. 22620, ff. 133, 139. However much he may have disapproved of the decision to execute the king, there was no doubt of his support for the new republic.

The control of London understandably remained an immediate concern for him. On 10 February 1649 Atkin was included on the committee to revise the oath for the London freemen.161CJ vi. 137a. On 30 March Atkin reported Lord Mayor Reynardson’s refusal to proclaim the abolition of monarchy in London.162CJ vi. 177a. Five days later, after Reynardson had been dismissed, Atkin told Parliament that Thomas Andrewes had been chosen as his replacement.163CJ vi. 179a. On 10 April he and other MPs asked the common council for a loan of £120,000.164CJ vi. 183a. He played an active part in establishing the corporation to relieve the London poor, and on 6 June, with Rowland Wilson*, introduced a bill to enable the corporation to have the use of Heydon House in the Minories.165CJ vi. 171a, 226b, 284a. He was presumably present at the feast for the council and Parliament hosted by the corporation of London at Grocers’ Hall on 7 June to celebrate the suppression of the Levellers, although the printed speech allegedly delivered by him to that gathering was another spoof.166Hosanna, 1-3. He was certainly one of those appointed the next day to thank the lord mayor.167CJ vi. 227b. On 30 June he was among those asked to prepare a bill to grant some of the ex-royal lands in Surrey to the corporation of London.168CJ vi. 247a. He added to the committee for corporations on 28 January 1650 when it was asked to consider the latest London petition, while on 13 April he was included on the committee to consider their next petition.169CJ vi. 351a, 398a. In all this, he formed an especially effective partnership with his fellow London alderman, Isaac Penington.170Worden, Rump Parliament, 31.

Atkin joined the excise committee on 10 February 1649.171CJ vi. 137b. The following month he sat on the committee considering the bill creating the Committee of Public Accounts (2 Mar.).172CJ vi. 154a. On 14 May he was named to the committee appointed to consider the provisions for wounded soldiers and for the families of those men who had died fighting for Parliament.173CJ vi. 209b. A year later this resulted in a bill for their relief and Atkin was then duly named to the committee considering it.174CJ vi. 569b. Meanwhile, on 26 May 1649, he had been among those appointed to examine the accounts of the treasurers for sequestrations.175CJ vi. 218a. Legislation that he probably supported included the bill for the propagation of the Gospel in New England (13 June), the bill to repeal the recusancy laws (29 June) and the bill on presentations to ecclesiastical livings (18 July).176CJ vi. 231a, 245b, 263b. He was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers on 5 September and, in March 1650, to another of the Rump’s instruments for settling a godly ministry, the committee for regulating the universities, of which he was an active member.177CJ vi. 290a, 388b; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16, passim. He also supported the efforts to discourage swearing and cursing.178CJ vi. 317b. The re-conquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell* had his unqualified support. In early November 1650, following Wexford, he wrote of how, ‘it doth appear that God hath done wonderful things there of late’.179Add. 22620, f. 135. He repeated this remark several weeks later.180Add. 15903, f. 71. He seems also to have supported the proposal, placed before the Commons on 9 January 1650, that the number of MPs in any Parliament should be limited to 400. Reporting this to the mayor of Norwich, he pointed out that under the existing distribution of seats, Cornwall was vastly over-represented.181Add. 15903, f. 67.

Matters of direct relevance to his constituency also kept him busy. Those included the bill to prevent ill-affected persons being elected to the Norwich corporation which he and Miles Corbett were asked by Parliament to prepare in February 1649 in response to a petition from the corporation. The resulting bill was enacted on 7 March.182CJ vi. 130a, 153a, 158a. As usual, the Norwich corporation had its wish list of business that it wanted its MPs to promote. In late 1649, however, Atkin warned them that there were few MPs willing to support him in the ways that would be necessary to get anything done.183Add. 22620, f. 137. It particularly annoyed him that the other Norwich MP, Erasmus Earle*, preferred to concentrate on his legal career.184Add. 22620, f. 162. Especially time-consuming were Atkin’s efforts on behalf of the Norwich worsted weavers, who wanted was a system of regulation to protect them against competitors manufacturing inferior products. In July 1649 Atkin and Augustine Garland* were asked to take charge of their petition after it was referred to the committee on the bill concerning hats. That was a committee of which, presumably because of its relevance to the Norwich weavers, Atkin was already a member.185CJ vi. 247b, 260a. By late November he was trying to get that committee to report back to the House, although a month later he was ‘not a little troubled’ that progress had still not been made.186Add. 22620, f. 139; Add. 15903, f. 71. The result was a bill to implement the weavers’ proposal and when, in February 1650, that bill was sent to committee, Atkin and Earle headed the list of those named.187CJ vi. 358a; Add. 22620, f. 125. This bill was eventually enacted in November 1650.188A. and O. ii. 451-5; Add. 22620, f. 142. Atkin had less success with the revived proposal to unite some of the Norwich parishes, which from late December 1649 was under consideration by the Committee for Plundered Ministers.189Add. 15903, ff. 67, 71; Add. 22620, ff. 113, 115, 117, 119, 140. A bill was introduced on 1 February 1650, but despite Atkin’s best efforts, nothing more was heard of it.190CJ vi. 354a; Add. 22620, ff. 121, 123, 131, 146. In July 1650 the Norwich corporation asked him to submit a list of 27 clergymen that they wished to recommend to the Committee for Plundered Ministers. Atkin was wary of doing so and, on overcoming his misgivings, was embarrassed when the committee objected that some of the names on the list were politically suspect.191Add. 22620, ff. 172, 176. Another issue he had to raise at Westminster was the anomaly that the powers of the Norwich justices of the peace had not extended to parts of the cathedral precincts. This was partly solved by the granting of a special commission of the peace.192Add. 22620, ff. 115, 144, 146, 160, 170. In the spring of 1650 he advised the Norwich corporation to use the sale of the fee farm rents to buy those that affected them.193Add. 22620, ff. 129, 131, 148, 152, 154.

On 3 July 1650 Atkin acted as teller with Sir William Masham* against sending the poet Sir William Davenant for trial before the high court of justice.194CJ vi. 436b. With Francis Allein, he took charge of the committee to bring down the price of corn (17 July).195CJ vi. 441b. Atkin came ninth, with 21 votes, in the ballot for the excise commissioners on 18 July, although in the event only one MP (George Snellinge*) was appointed.196CJ vi. 443a. On 27 August he, together with one of the Salweys (Humphrey* or Richard*) and James Nelthorpe*, was asked to oversee the attempts to raise more money.197CJ vi. 459b. He and Sir Henry Vane II* were the tellers on 17 September in the vote on an amendment to Parliament’s reply to Charles Stuart’s latest declaration, counting the minority that wanted the word ‘change’ to remain in the text.198CJ vi. 469a.

Atkin remained a vital link with London. He was sent to the lord mayor on 17 October 1650 to request that he inform Parliament of all ministers who had failed to observe 8 October as a day of thanksgiving, and on 26 November to tell him that all the London parishes were to mark the next day of thanksgiving, which was to celebrate the latest victories in Ireland.199CJ vi. 484b-485a, 501a. When on 24 December, the House considered the disputed aldermanic election in Dowgate ward, some MPs wanted to use this as a pretext to overturn all the recent London elections. Atkin and Francis Allein opposed this by acting as tellers for the majority in the division that ensured that this was not put to a vote.200CJ vi. 514b. Atkin was again sent to inform the lord mayor of a day of thanksgiving in early March 1651.201CJ vi. 546b. Later that year he was part of the delegation sent to thank the London militias for mustering on 25 August at a time when Charles Stuart and the Scots were marching southwards.202CJ vii. 6b.

By now Atkin’s attendance at Westminster may have been becoming more intermittent. But there is no real evidence that he was becoming disaffected with the republic. Given his experience of the London militia, it is unsurprising that he was included on the committee appointed on 28 January 1651 to consider complaints about the militias throughout the country.203CJ vi. 528b. He acted as teller with Sir Arthur Hesilrige* in the majority in favour of giving the bill to alter the market day in Newcastle a second reading (18 June 1651).204CJ vi. 589b. That November he was included on the committee to establish what business before the House needed to be given priority or be revived.205CJ vii. 37b. He was added to the committee on Whitehall Palace on 3 December.206CJ vii. 46b. In early 1652 he twice acted as teller to limit the generosity of the terms of the oblivion bill; against putting the question that the terms of the bill should date from 30 January 1648, rather than from the beginning of the Long Parliament (20 Jan.) and, with Hesilrige, in the minority in favour of excepting Charles Cavendish from pardon (24 Feb.).207CJ vii. 75a, 96a. Thereafter Atkin was named to seven committees in six months. Those included that on putting the poor to work (27 Apr.), on the bill for the sale of forfeited estates (15 July) and on the queries referred to Parliament by the compounding commissioners (27 July).208CJ vii. 100a, 127a, 127b, 134a, 154b, 157b, 158b. On 10 December he was ordered to take care of the committee to require the lord mayor and court of aldermen to investigate and remedy the rise in price of coal ‘for the good of the poor’.209CJ vii. 227b. He was named to one further committee (on the case of Lady Hungerford) on 18 February 1653.210CJ vii. 260b.

Later life

Atkin played a far less visible role in public life under the protectorate, while not being completely inactive. In 1654, as an ex officio London justice of the peace, he officiated at marriage ceremonies in the parish of St Michael Bassishaw.211Regs. of St Michael Bassishaw, ed. A.W.H. Clarke (Harl. Soc. lxxiii. 1943), 63, 65, 71. In June 1656 he was granted £300 by the London common council for ‘divers reasons’.212Corp. of London RO, common council jnl. 41, f. 135b. Under normal circumstances a lord mayor would have been knighted on taking office, but Atkin and London had been at war with the king when he had assumed that position in 1644. Cromwell rectified this by knighting Atkin in early December 1657, when the lord protector also knighted Thomas Foote* and John Hewson*.213Mercurius Politicus (3-10 Dec. 1657), 152. On the death of Sir John Wollaston in 1658, Atkin transferred to become the alderman of Bridge Ward Without. Wollaston’s death also meant that Atkin became the senior ranking London alderman.214Beaven, Aldermen, i. 65, 251.

Sir Thomas had taken his seat in the restored Rump by 7 May 1659, for he was then sent to instruct the lord mayor to ensure the preservation of the peace in the capital.215CJ vii. 646a. By then he was the only current London alderman still sitting as an MP.216Beaven, Aldermen, i. 301. Of his 22 committee appointments several were again concerned with London affairs and financial matters, particularly army pay. He was soon appointed by Parliament to the new London commissions for oyer and terminer and gaol delivery.217CJ vii. 656b, 657b. When the committee on maimed soldiers was asked to prepare lists of those soldiers living in the Savoy and at Ely House (13 June), Atkin was among those MPs added to the committee.218CJ vii. 682a. That same month he was one of the MPs asked to consider how to borrow money for the army’s pay secured against the newly-passed assessment Act.219CJ vii. 689a. He was also named to the committee to consider how to punish those who disturbed religious services (1 July).220CJ vii. 700b. On 19 July he was ordered to thank his Norwich constituents for their petition.221CJ vii. 723b. Two days later he and Isaac Penington were ordered to tell the Middlesex sheriffs and justices of the peace to suppress any disturbances in Enfield Chase.222CJ vii. 726b. On 8 September he was named to the committee to review the state of the government and the constitution.223CJ vii. 775b. Having himself been appointed as an excise commissioner, he and John Lowry* acted as tellers on 27 September for those who failed to get George Foxcroft included as a commissioner in the bill to continue the excise.224CJ vii. 780b, 786b, 787a. On 7 October he went to thank the corporation for their dinner for Parliament at Grocers’ Hall the previous evening.225CJ vii. 793a.

One of the Rump’s first acts on reassembling yet again in late December 1659 was to reappoint Atkin as an excise commissioner.226CJ vii. 797b, 798a. On 31 December, following the vote by the common council to suspend their petition for a free Parliament, Atkin was sent to inform the lord mayor that Parliament wished to send a delegation to meet the court of aldermen.227CJ vii. 801a. Five weeks later, on 9 February 1660, when tensions between George Monck* and London were reaching a crisis point, Atkin was sent by Parliament to thank the lord mayor for his ‘discreet carriage’.228CJ vii. 838b. Then, on 15 February he drew Parliament’s attention to a pamphlet containing scurrilous allegations against certain MPs which had allegedly been reported to the lord mayor and the aldermen of London.229CJ vii. 843b. Six days later he and two of the readmitted MPs, Samuel Vassall and Sir Gilbert Gerard*, informed the lord mayor that Parliament had given permission for the City’s gates, which Monck had insisted be removed, to be reinstated.230CJ vii. 847b. The next day he was named to the committee on the bill to continue the customs and excise.231CJ vii. 848a. On 29 February he was included on the committees on the bills for a loan from London and to settle the London militia, while on 1 March he was named to the committee to consider the petition from Trinity House on the plight of distressed mariners.232CJ vii. 856a, 857b. Fittingly, his last recorded involvement in the Long Parliament, also on 1 March, was as part of the delegation that went to the lord mayor and the corporation of London to ask for that latest loan.233CJ vii. 858a.

In 1660 Atkin succeeded Sir Thomas Vyner as the president of Christ’s Hospital in London, but the following year he was replaced by John Fowke†.234Pearce, Annals of Christ’s Hosp. 302. He also stepped down as an alderman on 12 February 1661.235Beaven, Aldermen, i. 65. He appears then to have retired to Kingston-upon-Thames. In April 1666 he made his will, ‘hoping to have free pardon and remission of all my sins and to enjoy eternal rest and happiness with the blessed saints in his heavenly kingdom through the only merits of the death and passion of my saviour and redeemer’. He left legacies to his grandchildren and land worth £800 in King’s Lynn to his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, the widow of an unnamed son, whom he appointed executrix. He also referred to £1,648 owing to him at Weavers’ Hall on the security of the excise. Requesting ‘nothing to be given at my burial but a sup of wine nor any black to be worn’, he died at Kingston, according to the register of St Andrew Undershaft, London, where he was buried on 14 January 1669.236PROB11/329, f. 13; St Andrew Undershaft par. reg.