CLAVERING, James (1620-1702), of Axwell Houses, Whickham, co. Dur.

The line of Clavering of Axwell – a cadet branch of a venerable Northumbrian family – was founded by Clavering’s grandfather and namesake, who had risen to become one of Newcastle’s leading merchants and had served as mayor of the town in 1607 and again in 1618.42Surtees, Co. Dur. ii. 240, 248; Hedly, Northumb. Fams. i. 161-3, 165, 171. He was evidently a godly but conforming Protestant, referring in his will to the wearing of mourning clothes as ‘but ceremonious...and mere vanity’, and yet requesting that no sermon be preached at his funeral, only the service ‘allowed by our Church of England, not omitting the psalms to be sung, which doth befit the time for such service’.43Durham RO, D/CG 7/636; Hedly, Northumb. Fams. i. 173. The MP’s father, a Newcastle mercer and coal-merchant, consolidated the family’s position among the town’s trading and municipal elite and in 1628 was himself appointed mayor of the town.44Hedly, Northumb. Fams. i. 172-3; Co. of Hostmen of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. Dendy, 66, 69, 72, 73, 74. The following year, he purchased (for £1,700) Axwell Houses, in County Durham, which became the family’s principal residence.45Durham RO, D/CG 7/15-16.

Although several members of the senior branch of the family sided with the king during the civil wars, the Claverings of Axwell appear to have sympathised more with Parliament.46Hedly, Northumb. Fams. i. 167; Howell, Newcastle, 162. In 1644, at the age of just 24, Clavering was appointed a parliamentary deputy lieutenant for County Durham (probably on the recommendation of Sir Henry Vane I*), and by late 1645 he was active on the Durham county committee.47Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 225; CJ iii. 593a; LJ vi. 677; Recs. of the Cttees. for Compounding...in Durham and Northumb. ed. R. Welford (Surt. Soc. cxi), 39; W. Dumble, ‘Government, Religion and Military Affairs in Durham during the Civil War and Interregnum’ (Durham Univ. MLitt. thesis, 1978), 127, 147. His decision to side with Parliament may well have been linked to his godly religious convictions, which were sufficiently well known to secure his nomination as an elder in the County Durham Presbyterian classis.48Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 368. He was subsequently appointed to the 1650 commission for propagating the gospel in the northern counties.49CJ vi. 374a; Severall Procs. in Parl. 23 (28 Feb.-7 Mar. 1650), 312. He apparently had no trouble accommodating himself to the rule of the Rump – attending the County Durham quarter sessions on a regular basis from 1651.50Durham RO, Q/S/OB/4, pp. 121, 353; CCC, 821. Moreover, he seems to have been on friendly terms with Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, the governor of Newcastle under the commonwealth.51Musgrave Muzl’d, or the Mouth of Iniquitie Stoped (1651), 13 (E.625.11); Dumble, ‘Government, Religion and Military Affairs in Durham’, 164, 199.

By 1647, Clavering was part of the Newcastle consortium that owned the so-called ‘grand lease’ colliery of Gateshead and Whickham; and by the mid-1650s, he had emerged as a leading figure among the Newcastle Hostmen – the town’s coal-merchant cartel. In April 1656, he and Major Jeremiah Tolhurst* were dispatched to manage the company’s affairs in London, and in particular to resist Ralph Gardiner’s efforts to break the Hostmen’s monopoly on the region’s coal trade.52Durham RO, D/St/D5/3/88; Tyne and Wear Archives, GU.HO/1/1, Minute Bk. of the Newcastle Co. of Hostmen, pp. 40-1, 47-8, 55, 73, 109, 111, 112, 115; Co. of Hostmen of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. Dendy, 98, 109, 113; Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. Dendy, 273. Clavering’s connections with the Hostmen doubtless magnified his importance in County Durham, where he already enjoyed a strong proprietorial interest as the owner of several collieries and manors close to the Tyne.53Durham RO, D/CG 7/16-18, 61, 638; D/St/D5/2/124, 129; D/St/D5/3/88, 90; D/Lo/F 110; Durham UL, CLV 403. No other local gentleman combined his loyal political record and high standing among the Hostmen, and in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, he was returned for County Durham.54Supra, ‘Durham County’. The esteem in which the county’s voters held him was not shared at Whitehall, however, for the following month he was among those Members excluded from the House by the protectoral council as enemies of the government.55CJ vii. 425b. Major-general Robert Lilburne* may have seen Clavering’s election as confirmation of his suspicion that Heslirige had incensed the Durham voters against the government.56TSP v. 296. Certainly the Presbyterian-leaning Clavering was unlikely to have favoured the rule of the major-generals. However, he probably had little else in common with the republican Hesilrige; and it may well have been allegations of collusion with the royalists that sealed his exclusion. In November, one of Secretary John Thurloe’s* informants alleged that Clavering had been party to a royalist plot involving Tolhurst and Major-general Charles Howard* to seize Tynemouth Castle and that since March he had lent £4,000 to Charles Stuart.57TSP v. 572, 578. His treatment in 1656, coupled with the removal of County Durham’s seats under the Humble Petition and Advice, seems to have stifled whatever ambitions he may have had to carve out a parliamentary career for himself.

Clavering retained his place on the county bench after the Restoration and was created a baronet as part of the king’s strategy to court moderate Presbyterians.58CB. Having been elected an alderman of Newcastle by early 1663, he and Robert Ellison* were among the ten men whom the corporation appointed trustees of the grand lease colliery.59Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/3, f. 61v; Howell, Newcastle, 186. Although Clavering resigned his aldermanship in 1669, he continued to play a leading role in the region’s affairs and in 1675 stood as a candidate for the newly re-enfranchised County Durham, but was defeated on a poll by Thomas Vane (the heir of Sir Henry Vane II*), who commanded the support of the county’s ‘sectaries’.60Tyne and Wear Archives, MD.NC/1/3, f. 117v; Co. of Hostmen of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ed. Dendy, 139, 263, 273, 289; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 213; 1664-5, p. 547; 1665-6, p. 64; 1667-8, p. 394; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Durham County’.

Clavering died in the spring of 1702 and was buried at St Mary, Whickham on 24 March.61St Mary, Whickham par. reg. The only substantial bequest in his will was that of £300 to an errant granddaughter who had defied his wishes and ‘married below herself’.62Durham UL, DPR/I/1/1702/C8/1-2. One of Clavering’s descendants, Sir Thomas Clavering, 7th bt., sat for County Durham and several other constituencies between 1753 and 1790.63HP Commons 1715-1754, ‘Sir Thomas Clavering’.