NELTHORPE, James (1618-98), of Beverley, Yorks., and later High Street, Windsor, Berks., and Charterhouse Yard, Mdx.

Nelthorpe’s grandfather had settled at Wawne, near Beverley, by the 1570s.33F. Henthorn, Hist. of Brigg Grammar School (Brigg, 1959), 1-2. His father, Edward Nelthorpe, was a mercer-draper and alderman of Beverley and had served as mayor of the town in 1610-11.34Poulson, Beverlac, i. 399. Nelthorpe was a younger son by what was evidently his father’s second wife. This would explain the reference in Alderman Nelthorpe’s will to his ‘last deceased wife’ and the fact that he left money for the education of his son, Edward, while making another son, also named Edward (who must have been his step-son from a previous marriage, presumably to a wealthy widow), his executor. It would also account for the two inquisitions post mortem taken of his estate – the first referring to an heir, Edward, aged ten, and the second to an heir, Edward, of ‘full age’.35C142/666/142; Hull Hist. Cent. U DDBA/8/5; U DDBA/8/31; Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 37B, f. 507v. Alderman Nelthorpe died a wealthy man, making bequests in his will in excess of £1,500 and leaving an estate that included considerable property in and around Beverley. Nelthorpe’s share of this patrimony consisted of two tenements in the town, two closes held by lease from Sir Michael Warton (father of Michael Warton*), the lease of two farms in Wawne and a legacy of £500. Alderman Nelthorpe may also have been a man of godly sympathies. In December 1622 he gave Beverley corporation £10 towards setting the poor on work; and in his will he left £1 to the town’s puritan lecturer, Richard Rhodes, to preach at his funeral.36Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 37B, f. 507v; Marchant, Puritans, 26, 37, 271.

Whereas Nelthorpe’s two older brothers were admitted at Gray’s Inn in 1634, he himself was apprenticed to a Hull mercer, although he reportedly did not complete his apprenticeship before leaving to set up shop in his native Beverley.37G. Inn Admiss. 205, 206; Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, p. 610. Appointed an alderman of Beverley at the relatively young age of 22, he was one of seven municipal office-holders to lend money for the king’s entertainment in the town in October 1640.38E. Riding Archives, BC/II/5/1, f. 13; BC/II/7/4, f. 71. In June 1642, he signed a petition to the king from a group of Yorkshire gentry (mostly future parliamentarians), complaining about Charles’s abandoning Parliament and drawing together the county’s trained bands – illegally, as the petitioners conceived it.39PA, Main Pprs. 6 June 1642, ff. 84-5.

Having transferred a large part of his business to Hull by early 1644, Nelthorpe approached the corporation and asked to be admitted a freeman. But although he enjoyed a ‘great trade’ in the town and was employed there as a sub-commissioner for the excise, the corporation denied his request and prohibited him from trading as a non-freeman. When he continued to keep shop in Hull, the corporation imposed a punitive rate of assessment upon him and distrained and sold his goods for non-payment. Alleging that he was being victimised as an exciseman, he procured a letter on his behalf from the town’s governor, Lord Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), the commander of Parliament’s northern army, to the Committee for Examinations*, where his case was supported by the excise commissioners and opposed by the Hull MP Peregrine Pelham. Unmoved by Pelham’s insistence that the corporation was merely upholding municipal privileges against non-free traders, the committee repeatedly (but apparently to little effect) ordered it to cease its ‘heavy and unheard of assessments ... against persons of known integrity and fidelity to the Parliament’ and ‘officers that are employed in the public service of the state’.40Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, pp. 610, 620, 651, 652, 664, 712; C BRL/332, 335, 337, 340, 342, 345, 347, 349, 351, 358, 360, 365; Hull Lttrs. ed. Wildridge, 52, 60, 66, 77; D. Scott, ‘‘Particular businesses’ in the Long Parliament: the Hull letters 1644-8’, in Parliaments, Politics and Elections, 1604-48 ed. C.R. Kyle (Cam. Soc. ser. 5, xvii), 281-2.

Nelthorpe and his Lincolnshire cousin John Nelthorpe were returned as ‘recruiters’ for Beverley in September 1645. Nelthorpe enjoyed a strong interest among the townsmen as an alderman and one of the wealthiest inhabitants. In 1641, for example, he had been assessed at £4 by the subsidy commissioners for property in the town – the highest rating of any Beverley taxpayer.41E179/205/465, m. 1. In addition, he may have enjoyed the support of Lord Fairfax and of one of Fairfax’s officers, Colonel Matthew Alured*, who had married the widow of Nelthorpe’s elder brother Edward and been granted the place of customer at Hull.42Supra, ‘Matthew Alured’; Hull Hist. Cent. U DDBA/8/11; Borthwick, Prerogative Ct. wills, will of Edward Nelthorpe of Walkington, July 1640. Nelthorpe was reportedly sitting in the House by 19 November, but his first recorded action at Westminster was on 31 December, when he and his cousin John took the Covenant.43Perfect Occurrences no. 48 (14-21 Nov. 1645), sig. Bb4v (E.266.20); CJ iv. 393a. Yet although Nelthorpe was clearly active in the House, the clerk of the Commons’ apparent tendency to refer to both James and John as ‘Mr Nelthorpe’ makes it impossible to catalogue either man’s activities and appointments with any precision.

During the three years or so after taking his seat – that is, until Pride’s Purge in December 1648 – James Nelthorpe was named to somewhere between six and 42 committees (John was named to somewhere between four and 42);44CJ v. 15a, 289b, 407a, 416b, 615a; vi. 87a. and during that same period, ‘Mr Nelthorpe’ served as a teller in two minor divisions and was twice appointed a messenger to the Lords.45CJ v. 12a, 502b, 625a, 667b. James was granted leave of absence on 14 March and 3 September 1646; on 27 April and 2 September 1647; and on 2 October 1648.46CJ iv. 475a, 662a; v. 155a, 288b; vi. 41b. He was also declared absent at the call of the House on 9 October 1647 and on 26 September 1648.47CJ v. 330a; vi. 34b. John Nelthorpe, by contrast, was granted leave on only two occasions – 13 March and 21 August 1647 – and declared absent at the call of the House on 9 October of that year but not in September 1648.48CJ v. 111a, 281a, 330a. James is known to have attended the House’s Northern Association Committee* in 1646, but it was John who reported from this committee in July 1648, and he may therefore have been the ‘Mr Nelthorpe’ who made regular such reports during the later 1640s.49CJ vi. 421b; LJ x. 423a. Given his familiarity with the world of commerce and his service as an exciseman, James was probably the man appointed to committees concerning the administration of the excise (11 March 1646); to consider petitions from the cloth traders and the London weavers (14 November 1646; 27 May 1647); to investigate ‘the several charges that lie on the trade and merchandise of kingdom’ (6 November 1647); and to examine the accounts of the customs commissioners (4 March 1648).50CJ iv. 472b, 722a; v. 187a, 352a, 480a. But the majority of the committees to which ‘Mr Nelthorpe’ was named cannot be assigned to one or the other man with any degree of certainty.

At least one of the Nelthorpes continued to attend the Commons during the Presbyterian ‘counter revolution’ of late July and early August 1647; neither man is known to have signed the ‘engagement’ of those Members who took refuge with the army.51CJ v. 265a. James was added to the Committee for Plundered Ministers* late in 1647 and to the Committee for Excise* early in 1648.52CJ v. 407a, 416b. And it was possibly he who was appointed in April and May 1648 to request the Presbyterian divine Anthony Burgess to preach to the Commons on the next fast day and to thank him for his pains afterwards – although the House would turn to John Nelthorpe to perform those roles with respect to another minister a few months later.53CJ v. 545b, 580a. On 27 June, the House ordered James and three other Members to request the excise commissioners to advance £6,000 for repairing the fortifications at Hull.54CJ v. 615a. His last committee appointment before Pride’s Purge was on 25 November.55CJ vi. 87a.

Nelthorpe retained his seat at Pride’s Purge, unlike his cousin John. But though he was named to the 6 January 1649 commission for trying the king, he played no part in the trial proceedings; nor is there any firm evidence that he took his seat in the Rump before 1 February, when he entered his dissent to the 5 December vote that the king’s answers to the Newport treaty were an acceptable basis for settlement.56[W. Prynne*], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660), 23 (E.1013.22). He was named to 24 committees in the Rump – the majority of which concerned the advancement of trade, the management of public revenues and the sale of former church and royal estates.57CJ vi. 120b, 154a, 160b, 161b, 247b, 267a, 270a, 330b, 335a, 459b, 534a; vii. 58a, 104a, 115a, 159a, 164b, 171b, 182a, 187b, 210a, 222b, 244a, 263b. The work of a committee set up on 28 August 1650 to advance money for the public service was referred specially by the House to the care of Nelthorpe, Francis Allein and Richard Salwey.58CJ vi. 459b. He was also active on the Rump’s standing committees for the excise, removing obstructions on the sale of bishops’ lands (to which he was added on 17 January 1649) and the Committee of Navy and Customs, from which he delivered a report to the House on 22 September 1652.59CJ vii. 184a; CUST109/14, p. 18; Add. 18986, f. 15; Add. 22546, ff. 63, 69; Add. 70006, f. 87; SP18/30, ff. 141-4, 146-8; Bodl. Rawl. A.224, f. 88; Rawl. C.386, passim; LPL, Add. commonwealth recs., Ms 1, ff. 60, 68v, 73v, 76, 78v; Belvoir, QZ.5, ff. 8, 114; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 290. He purchased at least one forfeited estate in Yorkshire from the treason trustees in the early 1650s and fee farm rents worth approximately £470 a year.60CCC 3066; SP28/288, ff. 30, 47, 49, 52, 54, 55. But his purchases of church lands were apparently made on behalf of third parties, among them Sir William Allanson*, rather than himself.61Supra, ‘Sir William Allanson’; Coll. Top. et Gen. i. 7. He seems to have fallen out of favour under the Nominated Parliament, for on 6 October 1653, he and several other gentlemen, including Allanson and Matthew Alured, were removed from the East Riding bench.62C231/6, p. 270. Moreover, he was omitted from the November 1653 assessment commission.

In July 1654, at Nelthorpe’s ‘several requests’, Beverley corporation elected another alderman in his place, ‘his living so remote from us’.63E. Riding Archives, BC/II/5/1, f. 13. His new place of residence was not stated, but it was very probably Windsor, in Berkshire, where he had purchased a house on High Street by 1658 at the latest.64C8/131/102; Berks. RO, WI/AT1/196, 392, 328, 272, 273, 274. There is no evidence that he sought election to any of the protectoral Parliaments.

Having returned to Westminster following the restoration of the Rump in the spring of 1659, Nelthorpe was named to 23 committees between 11 May and the House’s dissolution by the army five months later.65CJ vii. 648b, 656b, 659b, 664b, 668a, 676b, 682a, 684b, 689a, 691a, 697b, 698b, 702a, 707b, 751b, 763b, 772a, 774b, 775b, 780a, 780b, 782a. A high proportion of these appointments related to trade and maritime issues, the management and improvement of public revenues and the supply of the army.66CJ vii. 648b, 656b, 668a, 676b, 682a, 684b, 689a, 691a, 702a, 763b, 772a, 780b. On 18 May, for example, he was committed on a bill for appointing new navy and admiralty commissioners; on 13 June, he was added to the Rump’s standing committee for inspecting the state’s treasuries (of which he was an active member); on 14 June and 1 September, he was named to committees for bringing in new assessment bills; and on 20 June he was included on a small committee to consider how to borrow money ‘towards the present pay of the soldiery’.67CJ vii. 656b, 682a, 684b, 689a, 772a; Add. 4197, f. 229. The fallout from Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in August exacerbated tensions among the Rump’s leading politicians, prompting the establishment of committees on 6 and 8 September – to which Nelthorpe was named – to consider the introduction of a new engagement ‘against any king, single person and House of Peers and every of them’, and ‘to prepare something to be offered to the House in order to the settlement of the government of this commonwealth’.68CJ vii. 774b, 775b.

Nelthorpe returned to Westminster following the Rump’s second restoration, late in December, and he was named to a further nine committees before early February 1660 – including those to remodel the county benches and the commissions for managing the army and admiralty and to re-draft Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s bill for an oath renouncing the ‘pretended title of Charles Stewart and the whole line of the late King James, and of every other person, as a single person, pretending ... to the crown of these nations’.69CJ vii. 800a, 806b, 808b, 811a, 818a, 821a, 822a, 828b. On 1 February, he was named to a six man committee for inspecting the state’s treasuries.70CJ vii. 828b. And the next day (2 February) the House passed legislation establishing a new Army Committee with Nelthorpe and his fellow Yorkshireman, Vice-Admiral John Lawson, as its treasurers at war. Although this committee would quickly be superseded, the council of state and then the privy council retained the two men’s services as receivers of public revenues for the army until the spring of 1662, with a salary of £2,400 a year ‘for their pains and charges in the execution of the said office’.71CJ vii. 824a, 847a, 851b; Add. 4197, ff. 125-8; E351/308, 310; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 523. Nelthorpe continued to attend the Commons following the re-admission of the secluded Members on 21 February and was named to at least one committee, on 29 February.72CJ vii. 856a. But most of the references in the Journals to ‘Mr Nelthorpe’ during the last few weeks of the Long Parliament probably relate to his cousin John, who was evidently the more active of the two men at Westminster after 21 February.73Infra, ‘John Nelthorpe’; CJ vii. 847b, 848b, 860b. Nevertheless, James was reportedly still present in the House in mid-March, when the Long Parliament was finally dissolved.74The Grand Memorandum, or a True and Perfect Catalogue of the Secluded Members of the House of Commons sitting 16 March 1659 (1660, 669 f.24.37).

Nelthorpe was omitted from all local commissions after the Restoration and seems to have made no attempt to revive his parliamentary career. He probably had to surrender many of the royal and crown lands he had purchased since the late 1640s, although in August and October 1660, the crown granted him a lease of fee farm rents in Yorkshire worth at least £484 a year – possibly in part payment of his salary as a treasurer at war.75CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 209; CRES6/1, p. 185. At some point in the early 1660s he took up residence in Charterhouse Yard, Middlesex, which remained his main residence until his death in 1698.76Survey of London, xlvi. 257, 279; Hull Hist. Cent. U DDEV/31/114. One of his sons, Richard, was implicated in the Rye House Plot, took part in Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685 and, following his capture and trial, was hanged, drawn and quartered.77Henthorn, Brigg Grammar School, 7-8; Oxford DNB, ‘Richard Nelthorpe’.

There is some uncertainty as to exactly where and when James Nelthorpe was buried. A ‘Mr James Nelthorpe’ of Charterhouse Yard (either Nelthorpe or his grandson and namesake) was buried at St Botolph, Aldersgate on 8 December 1698; and a ‘James Nelthorpe esq.’ of Charterhouse Yard was buried at St James, Clerkenwell the next day (9 Dec.).78St Botolph, Aldersgate par. reg.; St James, Clerkenwell par. reg. In his will, Nelthorpe divided his estate between his two surviving sons and two of his grandsons and made bequests of approximately £4,000, including £200 to the poor of Beverley and £100 to be distributed among ‘poor ministers and other poor people’.79PROB11/459, ff. 55-57v. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.