DITTON, Humphrey (d. aft.1667), of St Thomas, Salisbury, Wilts.

Dittons had been resident in Salisbury since at least the mid-fifteenth century, although this MP’s father, also called Humphrey Ditton, lived in Wilton, where he served as mayor in 1614, 1619, and 1624.15Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 357; Wilts. RO, G25/1/21, pp. 312, 322, 336. As a tenant of the Herberts, earls of Pembroke, he operated Isombard’s Mills, from where he was twice prosecuted for engrossing wheat in the early seventeenth century, and shortly before his death in December 1632 the lease of this property was passed to his three sons.16Wilton par. reg.; N.J. Williams, Tradesmen in Early Stuart Wilts. (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xv), 75, 80; Surveys of the Manors of Philip, 1st Earl of Pembroke ed. E. Kerridge (1953), 2, 4, 83-4. To his grandson and namesake, the MP’s son born in 1618, he left his house in West Street, Wilton, although the MP’s elder brother Abraham was the heir to the bulk of the family property in the borough.17Wilts. RO, P2/D/172. The MP’s younger brother George matriculated at Oxford in 1616 aged 19, and became perpetual vicar of Chitterne St Mary in Wiltshire in 1629.18Al. Ox.; Clergy of the C of E database.

Humphrey Ditton of Salisbury appears to have been a cloth merchant, presumably established in his trade by the time he married at St Thomas in November 1616. He and his wife Jane brought at least eight children for baptism there between 1617 and 1634, and by the 1630s Humphrey was an active member of both the parish and the corporation.19St Thomas, Salisbury, par. reg.; Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 218. Nominated as one of the ‘forty-eight’ in 1629, Ditton was appointed to oversee the collection of money for Protestant refugees from the Palatinate in the following year.20Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, ff. 341v, 356; HMC Var. iv. 239. As churchwarden of St Thomas in 1632-3, Ditton may have been responsible for paying the bell-ringers 2s 6d at the king’s departure from the town, and 4. upon the arrival of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke. His godly zeal is apparent from the payment of 2d. for chains with which to fasten John Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ for public display in the church.21Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 316. In July 1639 he was designated by the corporation to treat with parishes which had yet to contribute towards the cost of Wednesday afternoon lectures.22Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 410. By 1640 Ditton was one of the corporation’s leading puritans, and it was as one of the ‘twenty-four’, that he helped to promote the town’s petition to the Long Parliament against the election of the town’s recorder, Robert Hyde*, on the basis of the latter’s intimidation of voters, support for Ship Money, and Laudian tendencies. That Ditton was one of the ringleaders of the campaign against Hyde is evident from his subsequent membership of a delegation which attended the Commons in support of the petition (24 Feb. 1641).23Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, f. 405v; Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi. 391. In January 1642 Ditton was also nominated by his parish to attend the local dean and chapter, regarding their desire to secure the services of one John Conant, in place of their minister, Mr Buckner.24Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 322.

Upon the outbreak of civil war, Ditton was chosen as the town’s parliamentarian mayor, and there is evidence that he oversaw the arrest of at least one royalist, and that he complained to the earl of Pembroke’s agent Michael Oldisworth* when the man escaped with the help of a passing band of the king’s troops in January 1643.25HMC Portland, i. 87; Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 323. In 1645 he was a signatory to the indenture returning John Dove* as the borough’s recruiter MP.26C219/43/3, no. 22. Ditton was subsequently nominated as mayor for a second time in 1647-8, by which time he was also serving as the county’s treasurer, and as a leading member of the county committee.27Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 23v, 27; Add. 5508, ff. 161v-2, 163v, 165, 167-8, 169-70; Som. RO, DD/WHb/3152.

During the republic and protectorate, Ditton remained an active civic and parish official, and he made fairly frequent journeys to London. He was involved in negotiating with the contractors for the sale of dean and chapter lands regarding acquisition of properties in the cathedral close in 1650.28Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 45, 55v; Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 222-3. In 1653, meanwhile, he was delegated to consult with the town’s recorder and MPs regarding their minister’s salary, and the appointment of one Alexander Gregory as successor to John Conant as minister of St Thomas, while in July 1654 he exercised his vote in the county election.29Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 61v; Churchwardens’ Accounts Sarum ed. Swayne, 329-30; C219/44/pt 3. In addition, Ditton was involved in petitioning Oliver Cromwell regarding the town’s new charter in 1656, and in reforming St Nicholas Hospital later in the year.30Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, ff. 90, 95. Such service ensured that Ditton was chosen as one of the town’s MPs in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, on 3 January 1659, although he made no recorded impression upon proceedings, other than by being granted leave of absence on 7 March.31Wilts. RO, G23/1/4, f. 112v; CJ vii. 611b.

Ditton’s parliamentarian past, and godly zeal, evidently rendered him suspect to the Restoration regime. In December 1660 he was described in a letter to privy councillor John Nicholas† as ‘a commonwealth man’ who had recently taken delivery of a barrel of gunpowder, and it was alleged that he and his allies ‘have plots in hand, talk high, and hope to have a turn and see the cavaliers beg their bread before Christmas’.32CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 412; SP 29/23, f. 146. Ditton’s powder was quickly seized, but although subsequent examinations revealed that he was supposed to have had a store of arms in his house, no further action appears to have been taken against him.33CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 415, 477; SP 29/23, f. 205. He was, however, removed from the corporation in July 1662, as part of a purge of office-holders, and thereafter he disappears from the records.34Hoare, Hist. Wilts. vi. 449. He was still alive in August 1668, when he and his brother George ‘clerk’ were mentioned in the will of their kinsman (and probably nephew), Abraham Ditton of Wilton, but the date of his death is unknown.35Wilts. RO, P1/D/123. Ditton apparently died intestate, and his son and heir was still involved in settling the estate as late as 1685.36Wilts. RO, P1/D/190.