WADDON, John (1591-1653), of Plymouth.

In the mid-fifteenth century, the Waddons lived at Addington in Kent, where one of them founded a chapel. Another came to Plymouth in the mid-sixteenth century, to establish the family there as merchants with a secure position in the civic life of the town by the 1560s.13Vis. Devon 1620, 304. John Waddon the MP was the third generation with that Christian name. His grandfather, the first to settle in Plymouth, was of the Twenty-Four, the common council of the town, by 1561 and served twice as receiver, or chamberlain.14Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/48, 1/131; A. Norman, Who’s Who in Sixteenth Century Plymouth (privately printed, Plymouth, 2000). His father was a founder member of the company of merchants trading with France and mayor in 1612-13.15Select Charters of Trading Companies, 1530-1707 ed. C.T. Carr (Selden Soc. v. 28), 65; R.N. Worth, Hist. Plymouth (1890), 214. In his will, draw up in 1620, this John Waddon left property in Antony and a number of tenements in Plymouth including a brewhouse.16PROB11/136/414. None of the cash bequests he willed to his relatives was large, and on this evidence he was not among the wealthiest merchants in the town. Nevertheless, he ensured that his eldest son received an Oxford education. John Waddon graduated from Exeter College in 1609, and proceeded MA in 1612. His education and what was probably a modest but comfortable property portfolio due to him from his father kept Waddon out of the mercantile activity that marked most of Plymouth’s leading citizens, and gave him a standing in the town as a gentleman. The heralds recognised him in 1620, but when his son matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1632, he was recorded there as the son of a plebeian.17Al. Ox.

On his return to Plymouth after his higher education, Waddon married Prudence Fownes, the eldest daughter of Thomas Fownes of Plymouth, who counted himself an esquire and who was a justice of the peace for the town in 1620.18Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 358/114; Vis Devon 1620, 332. They had 15 children. Waddon was admitted to the corporation of Plymouth as a freeman shortly before his marriage. Despite the fact that Waddon was not involved in trade, he followed his father and grandfather along the cursus honorum of the town. He served as receiver in 1614-15 soon after his admission and was mayor in 1631-2. As a senior councillor of Plymouth he made official journeys to Exeter, probably to quarter sessions, on the town’s business, and approved the negotiations held there over Devon’s payment of Ship Money in 1637.19Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, ff. 235v, 240. In 1639, Waddon was granted the wardship of his kinsman by marriage, Thomas Fownes, a responsibility he shared with, among others, Richard Longe* of Bristol.20Coventry Docquets, 486. In 1641 he was rated in the subsidy on lands worth £4, further confirmation of his status as a gentleman.

When elections were held for the Short Parliament of 1640, Waddon’s selection by the corporation of Plymouth for the second seat after Robert Trelawny* was therefore for him another step along the civic cursus. He is not known to have played any part in that assembly, but the town council awarded him £99 for 29 days’ attendance at Westminster.21Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 250. Another six years elapsed before Waddon received his money.22Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 264v. He was returned again to the second Parliament to meet in 1640, but made no discernible impact there until March 1641, when he was named to a committee on a bill for needle and wire manufacturers.23CJ ii. 17b. His presence there was probably simply a reflection of his general interest in urban trade and industry. He took the Protestation on 3 May, and on the 20th was prominent in the list for the bill to build a new church in Plymouth, in which he was joined by the Members for Devon and Cornwall.24CJ ii. 151a. This bill was simply a response to the growth in population of Plymouth, and throughout 1641 Waddon played little part in the contentious and divisive ‘remedial’ legislation that captured the attention of political observers. The exception was the committee of 26 May investigating the farming of customs, in which he was naturally involved as burgess for an important seaport. In July he was included in the committee for a private bill on the estate of Sir Francis Popham of Somerset.25CJ ii. 157a, 228a.

The first impact that the national political crisis made on Waddon came in December 1641, when letters being sent to Rome by alleged papists were intercepted at Plymouth, and the two burgesses for the town were first named to the committee investigating the incident.26CJ ii. 364a. A commission from the king to offer the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to strangers in Plymouth came down soon afterwards, with Waddon as a commissioner.27Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/10. On 13 January 1642, he was included in the committee asked to report to the lord admiral, Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, on four frigates carrying arms from Dunkirk to Ireland.28PJ i. 57. That month he was probably centrally involved in the committee formed to address the chronic problem of seafarers captured by Algerian pirates. This was a direct response of the House to the petition on this subject from merchants in the New England and Newfoundland trades which had been forwarded by Plymouth corporation.29CJ ii. 394a; PA, Main Pprs. 1641 n.d. Waddon seems to have been busy in Parliament as a mouthpiece for the Plymouth corporation in 1642. On 7 March, he delivered a substantial and significant report from the Plymouth mayor, the result of his interrogation of a senior Irish cleric. It provided evidence (much of it inaccurate, as it turned out) on the progress of the rebellion in Ireland, including news that the Catholic rebels claimed the authority of the king for the rising, a papal legate had arrived in Ireland, England would soon be invaded, and Ulick Bourke, 5th earl of Clanricarde and 2nd earl of St Albans, had joined the rebels.30PJ ii. 3.

On 21 July, Waddon delivered in another letter from the mayor, admitting his reluctance to read the king’s proclamations, despite the urging of John Trelawny*. The response of the House was to form a committee, with Waddon as a member. He also reported that £1,500 had been sent to the corporation of the City of London on Parliament’s propositions. He hoped that another £1,500 would soon be collected, and announced that £500 had been gathered for the Protestant re-conquest of Ireland. When he gave in the petition of Mark Paget, a Plymouth minister whose property in Ireland had fallen to the rebels, the House awarded Paget £100 out of the Plymouth collection for that country.31PJ iii. 243-4; CJ ii. 683b. Waddon was evidently enthusiastic for the parliamentarian cause, pledging plate in September in support of the war effort. When Parliament sequestered the postmastership of Plymouth that month, Waddon was required to find a temporary successor for that office, and with Sir Edmund Fowell* was included in a committee charged with tracking down those who had started the civil war (16 Sept.).32CJ ii. 768a, 769a, 769b. On 3 October he was entrusted with passing on the intelligence of the arrival of the army of Sir Ralph Hopton* at Bodmin to Parliament’s Committee of Safety, and a few days later with John Glynne* and Gilbert Millington* he was required to produce an ordinance permitting the search of all ships bound for Ireland.33CJ ii. 790b, 800b. Two weeks later, Waddon and Sir John Bampfylde* were awarded £2,000 by the treasurers for money raised on the Propositions in support of Parliament’s war effort in Devon and Cornwall.34CJ ii. 811b; LJ v. 405a.

On 22 October 1642, the same day that he was appointed a member of the committee for the propositions, Waddon was allowed to return to Plymouth to play a major part in the establishment and maintenance of the garrison there.35CJ ii. 818a. He seems never to have held a military commission – the Captain Waddon taken prisoner by the royalists was probably one of his sons – and later filed his accounts of his activities at the garrison as John Waddon ‘esquire’.36SP28/128 (Devon), pt. 24, accts. of John Waddon; CJ iii. 212b. In effect he was a supplier or quartermaster to the garrison. He was probably in charge of procurement, as he had sufficient credit of his own to lay out money on supplies, to be reimbursed for some of his expenditure from money provided by Sir Samuel Rolle*.37SP28/128 (Devon), pt. 19, accts. of Philip Francis, f. 3. During the civic year 1642-3, the Plymouth corporation gave him £20 towards his service in Parliament.38Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 252. On 27 February, Waddon wrote an encouraging letter to his fellow burgess, Sir John Yonge and to Edmund Prideaux I*, reporting the excursion of the Plymouth force to repel the royalists at Modbury.39Harl. 164, f. 307v. Waddon remained in Plymouth until the summer, playing a part with Thomas Gewen* in the local garrison committee and joining the committee in reports to Sir John Yonge* on the pressures they endured in the face of the royalists’ advance.40Plymouth and W Devon RO, 710/708, 709; Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 276.

Waddon was back in the House by 14 August 1643, acting with Prideaux and Francis Buller I* in managing the proposed loan of £4,000 by the City to the garrison. He was to act as receiver when the money came through, but by mid-October he was still occupied in various attempts to persuade the City to release the funds.41CJ iii. 204b, 209b, 226a, 247b, 275b. On 16 August he, Buller and Anthony Nicoll* were deputed to ask Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, for a commission for Sir William Waller* to take an expeditionary force to the south west; Waddon was the only Devonian in the triumvirate.42CJ iii. 208a. On 4 September, the report of the treachery of Sir Alexander Carew* at the St Nicholas island fort reached him in London. In the aftermath of the plot’s exposure, Waddon and Yonge were asked to bring in an order to indemnify the mayor, who had done most to neutralize the threat.43Harl. 165, ff. 165, 165v; CJ iii. 227a. Subsequently, a committee with the Lords was formed for the defence of the ports of Plymouth, Lyme Regis and Poole, and an order was given that ships bound for the south west should include soldiers for Plymouth as well as for other ports. On 4 December, Waddon tried to ensure that he was given a hearing in the House before an order appointing William Gould as military governor (not treasurer, as the clerks had it) was confirmed.44CJ iii. 300b, 328b. The proposed new regime at Plymouth was part of the new association of the western counties enshrined in an ordinance, to which Waddon was called to work upon and which passed the Lords on 5 February 1644.45CJ iii. 383b; LJ vi. 409.

The new ordinance did little to resolve the problems of the garrison. Waddon alerted the House to the dangers posed by shortage of money to pay the soldiers, and on 23 March 1644 was deputed to bring in an ordinance providing a measure of indemnity for those who paid towards supporting them.46Harl. 166, f. 38. In May, he had to deliver a letter to the Speaker from Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, Parliament’s lord admiral, advising that no ships were available to protect Plymouth harbour. The problem was referred on, to the Navy Committee and the Committee of the West.47Harl. 166, f. 58. Through 1644, Waddon was rarely appointed to committees. He was named to one on the industrial topic of alum resources on 7 February, and in May was called to help draft a declaration to try to limit the traffic between towns in royalist hands and countries overseas.48CJ iii. 390a, 501a. As a west country MP he was among those to whom the case of Sir Walter Erle* as lieutenant of ordnance was referred (5 Aug.), and he was named to the committee dealing with the banishment of Edmund Waller*.49CJ iii. 580b, 671a. On 16 September, a letter was read in the House describing the persistent royalist efforts to persuade Plymouth to surrender. The committee for the seaport was encouraged to consider ways of raising a fresh customs levy for the relief of the town, and Waddon and Yonge were to write a letter from the Commons assuring the town of Parliament’s support.50CJ iii. 628b. Much of Waddon’s time during the whole of that year was probably devoted to lobbying in Parliament and the City on behalf of Plymouth.

In March 1645, Waddon went with two other west country Members, Sir Samuel Rolle and Sir Edmund Fowell, as messenger to the Lords to hasten the officer list of the New Model army. They acted as assistants to Sir Philip Stapilton, and doubtless shared his Presbyterian outlook. A few days later Waddon went again to the Upper House as a messenger, to urge a decision on the title of what became the Presbyterian Directory of Worship, and to make arrangements for a day of thanksgiving at parliamentarian successes in the west of England.51CJ iv. 71b; LJ vii. 267b. Any optimism Waddon felt at the successful resistance of Plymouth against the enemy must have been severely dented by the recall of John 2nd Baron Robartes and Sir John Bampfylde* as governors of Plymouth. On 9 May Edmund Prideaux I ‘thrust in’ the case of Plymouth into the business of the House, and reported how factions grew around the rival commanders. Prideaux persuaded the Commons that in the best interests of the security of the town, both should be recalled. Command of town and island was put into commission, although Waddon brought in a petition from the townsmen which urged the continuation in post of Robartes as an exception to the Self-Denying Ordinance. The petition probably reflected Waddon’s own views, but upon an announcement that Edward Massie* would assume command of a new western brigade, the recall orders passed the House. Waddon was required to tell the Plymouth petitioners that the recall of Robartes would proceed.52CJ iv. 136b, 137a; Harl. 166, f. 207v. The episode suggests that Waddon was able to exercise little influence over these decisions.

Waddon was included in June 1645 on a list of MPs who had suffered financial hardship and who were promised a compensatory allowance of £4 a week.53CJ iv. 161a. His difficulties were doubtless caused by the siege of Plymouth, where all his property lay. The prospect of an easing of his personal circumstances was held out by the advance of the New Model in the west, and on 29 September he was included in the list of MPs who were allowed to follow the army as it pushed into Cornwall.54CJ iv. 292b, 293a. Further orders during 1646 kept Waddon in the country.55CJ iv. 456a; v. 3a. As Parliament assumed control over the region, the clergy were among those who applied themselves to leading figures in authority with their particular cases. Among these was Joseph Buckley, a rector in Devon, who reported in March 1646 to Thomas Bedford, minister of Plymouth, how Waddon was ‘very kind and ready to do me justice’.56Bodl. Tanner 286, f. 103. Only during the mayoral year 1646-7 was Plymouth able to recompense Waddon for his parliamentary service, paying him the £99 he had been owed since the Short Parliament was dissolved and a further £200 towards his outlay at Westminster since November 1640.57Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 264v.

Waddon was back in the House by 9 January 1647, to be named to the committee of those with maritime interests who considered the proposals and criticisms of the Committee of Navy and Customs published by Andrews Burrell.58CJ v. 47a. Only two further committee appointments came his way that year, one of which was on the important topic of the indemnity ordinance, before he secured a further order for leave on 8 July.59CJ v. 84b, 166a, 236b. He was absent from the House during that turbulent summer, and was noted as absent at a call of the House in October. There can be little doubt that Waddon was out of sympathy with the Independents and their army-based allies. He was back in the House briefly towards the end of 1647, to be nominated to the parliamentary enquiry on the information laid before the House about Thomas Gewen’s part in the ‘forcing of the Houses’ (23 Nov.), and he opposed the motion on 10 December that the Independent naval commander turned soldier, Thomas Rainborowe*, should put to sea: probably an expression of a lack of confidence in Rainborowe’s politics more than a judgment on his seamanship.60CJ v. 367a, 378b. On 19 June 1648 Waddon was included in a party of MPs for Devon seats required to travel to Devon to establish the county militia, he was excused attendance on 26 September and the account he submitted to Plymouth corporation on 10 October, which elicited a payment to him of £148, must have represented his closing balance after his final return home.61CJ v. 606b; vi. 34b; Plymouth and W. Devon RO, 1/132, f. 271.

It can be presumed that Waddon harboured no sympathy with those who brought the king to trial and who subsequently executed him. Had he been in the Commons in December 1648 he would have been among those turned away by soldiers or imprisoned during Pride’s Purge, and indeed he figured in two lists of those secluded even though he is unlikely to have been present in the House after October.62A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). His appointments to tax commissions dried up in 1648, and he probably gave up his post as vice-admiral of the coast, or had it taken away from him, and he returned to Plymouth to a purely private life. In May 1651 he intervened unsuccessfully with the commissioners for compounding with delinquents in an attempt to secure the interests of the infant son of Captain John Fownes, a kinsman of his by marriage. Fownes had died in 1644, but not before an award from the sequestered estate of Sir Bevill Grenvile* had been made to him for a debt owed him. Grenvile’s estates had been put in trust – William Morice* was a trustee – but Waddon’s case was dismissed on the grounds that Grenvile’s heir had by this time inherited them.63CCC 2215. Waddon took on a poor apprentice in February 1652, but a year later drew up his will, committing his body to the earth, ‘the mother of all mankind’. This unusual phrase was almost certainly not an expression of pantheism, and his belief in redemption by ‘the immaculate lamb’ was orthodox enough. He left only very small bequests of money, suggesting that his award of an allowance by the Commons was justified. One of the overseers of the will was his ‘good friend’ Christopher Ceely*, and a trustee of his lands was his son-in-law, Timothy Alsop*. Waddon died in the spring of 1653 and was buried at St Andrew, Plymouth on 7 April.64St Andrew, Plymouth par. reg.