SQUIBB, Arthur (d. c.1680), of Westminster and Chertsey, Surr.

Arthur Squibb was descended from a large Dorset family whose roots in the county can be traced back to the fifteenth century. Identification of the MP is complicated by the presence in Westminster of another branch of the family headed by another Arthur Squibb – his cousin, uncle by marriage and namesake, an exchequer official who became Clarenceux king-of-arms and died in May 1650. Clarenceux also had a son Arthur, a London merchant.23London and Squibb, ‘Dorset King of Arms’, 56, 58-9. It is, however, certain that our Arthur Squibb served during the 1630s as clerk to the master of requests, Sir Edward Powell, who later described him in his will as ‘my constant faithful and loving friend’.24PROB/11/230/187; TSP i. 289. In January 1640 Squibb was granted a reversionary interest in the tellership of the exchequer, and by the spring of 1642 was sufficiently prosperous to contribute £300 to the Irish Adventure.25CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 151; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 217. By February 1646 he was employed by the Committee for Revenue as collector of the sequestered revenues of the archbishopric of Canterbury in Kent.26SP28/269, ff. 165, 168, 176-7, 187-8. In May of the same year he was made joint receiver of rents from the lands of the dean and chapter of Westminster Abbey with his brother, John.27HMC 4th Rep. 172. In August and September 1649 he was advising the council of state on the public revenues.28CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 280, 318. In April 1650 he was appointed a commissioner for compounding and during the next few years took an active role in the business of that commission.29Aylmer, State’s Servants, 217; A. and O.; CCAM, 91, 556, 997; Eg. 2978, ff. 276, 287-8; CJ vii. 159a. In January 1652 he and three other sequestrators were awarded damages from John Lilburne and Josiah Primate over the printing of petitions and other documents concerning a land dispute.30CJ vii. 72b, 74b. In July 1652 Squibb and other Westminster magistrates were ordered to investigate disturbances at the chapel at Whitehall.31CJ vii. 157b. It is not known when Squibb first became an Independent in religion, but by 1649 his home was the base for an active congregation where he was one of its most ardent preachers, and his efforts in counselling and instructing the faithful became well known.32H. Walker, Spiritual Experiences (1653), 44-5 (E.1389); B. Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (1972), 263.

Squibb was chosen to represent Middlesex in the Nominated Assembly, and on the first day of the session was called to lead prayers with his compounding commission colleague, Samuel Moyer*.33TSP i. 289; Clarke Pprs iii. 8-9. On 7 July Squibb was named to a committee to examine Sergeant Birkhead’s claim to the post of serjeant-at-arms, on 8 July he was appointed to the committee on the Engagement, and on 12 July he was named to the committee to examine the state of the treasuries.34CJ vii. 282a, 283b. He was appointed to the committee for committees on 14 July and on 28 July he was appointed a commissioner to inspect the treasuries.35CJ vii. 285a, 292a. On 21 September he was ordered to bring in a bill for the sale of royalist estates ‘discovered’ since January 1649, and on 29 October he was named as one of the commissioners in the act for compounding, advance of money and indemnity.36CJ vii. 322a, 342a. Such administrative business masked Squibb’s radicalism, but glimpses of this can be seen throughout this Parliament. He was named to the committee on the controversial matter of tithes, alongside other radical MPs, such as Henry D’Anvers, Hugh Courtney, Praise-God Barbon and Thomas Harrison I, on 19 July.37CJ vii. 286a He was also among those keen to promote wide-ranging legal reform. On 19 August he was teller in favour of setting up a committee for a new body of law, and when the new committee was established on the same day, he was appointed to it, along with Harrison and Barbon.38CJ vii. 304b. On 28 September he was teller with Barbon against reporting the bill for the high court of justice, which many felt was aimed at radicals as well as royalists.39CJ vii. 325b Squibb and his radical allies mostly withdrew from proceedings during the last months of the Assembly. On 25 October he was named to a committee to consider a petition from London’s Common Council.40CJ vii. 339b. On 1 December, Squibb and Sir William Roberts were ordered to investigate the appearance of a man with a knife at the doors of the House.41CJ, vii. 361a. When the majority of MPs sought to disband the Assembly and return power to Oliver Cromwell* as lord general, Squibb was among those who strenuously opposed this move, refusing to leave the Commons until evicted by William Goffe*, who quipped that the chamber ‘was not so fit for them as Mr Squibb’s house’.42J. Hall, Confusion Confounded (1654), 6; Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 74.

Squibb’s activity in the Nominated Assembly made him suspect in the eyes of the new lord protector, who later recounted that his opponents at that time, including Harrison and Christopher Feake, had met ‘at one Mr Squibb’s house, and there were all the resolutions take that were acted in that House day by day’.43Abbott, Writings and Speeches iv. 489. Although Squibb was confirmed with Moyers and others in his position as commissioner for compounding in January 1654, and was involved in its business in the same month, he soon relinquished his public offices.44Weekly Intelligencer (3-10 Jan. 1654, E.726.2); CCAM 111. He was not listed among the compounding commissioners on 10 February, and he sold the reversion of the tellership of the exchequer to his half-brother, Edmund, in the same month.45A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 272. The political upheavals also caused tensions within the congregations, including ‘the church that [walks] with Master Squibb’, which was said in March to have been divided over the question of complying with the new government.46Clarke Pprs v. 168-9. Squibb himself only came into direct conflict with Cromwell in February 1655 when he was part of a delegation to demand the release from prison of Feake and John Rogers, and in the winter of 1655-6 he was involved in the short-lived talks between Fifth Monarchists and commonwealthsmen over a new form of government.47The Faithfull Narrative of the Late Testimony and Demand (1655), 41 (E.830.20); Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 615; TSP vi. 185. Later in 1656, he was one of the witnesses invited by the Fifth Monarchists to oversee a dispute in John Simpson’s gathered church.48Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 276-8. Such activities may have lost Squibb his remaining friends within the establishment. On 28 February 1659 the third protectorate Parliament rescinded the Rump’s grant to Squibb and others of the fines imposed on the late John Lilburne.49CJ vii. 608a.

Squibb briefly returned to public life after the fall of the protectorate, and was reappointed to the Committee for Compounding on 28 July 1659.50CJ vii. 739b. The army grandees who seized power in October were deeply suspicious of the Fifth Monarchists, however, and it is likely that Squibb was arrested shortly after their coup.51Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 128. He and the republican James Chaloner* were released from prison on the Isle of Man by the restored Rump at the end of December.52CJ vii. 797b; Merc. Politicus 600 (22-29 Dec. 1659), 984 (E.773.35). After the Restoration Squibb appears to have remained in London for much of the time, and was clearly a major influence on the radical remnant, with one enthusiast exclaiming in 1662, ‘surely he is Harrison alive’.53Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 263. The government refused to allow Squibb to resume his administrative duties, deeming him ‘unfit’ and ‘incapable’ of holding office in 1662-3.54CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 369; 1663-4, p. 121. In July 1671 he was arrested for attending an unlawful prayer meeting led by the Fifth Monarchist, John Belcher, and in the following October he was charged with refusing to take the oath of allegiance.55CSP Dom. 1671, pp. 356-7; Mdx. Co. Recs. iv. 31. A year later, however, he took advantage of the Declaration of Indulgence to become licensed as a Baptist preacher from his home in Chertsey.56CSP Dom. 1672-3, p. 93. Squibb died at some point between late 1679 and April 1680, leaving property in Essex and his household goods to his wife during her life and thereafter to be divided among his children, who were also to receive shares in his Irish lands.57PROB11/362, ff. 398r-v.