NOELL, Thomas (1620-bef. 1687), of Barbados and Surinam.

Thomas Noell, a younger brother of the scrivener and financier Martin Noell, was born in the parish of St Mary, Stafford, in September 1620.11St Mary’s Stafford Par. Reg. ed. Thomas, 188. Nothing is known of his upbringing and education, and there is no record of him having performed any military service during the civil wars. He must not be confused with the prominent London alderman of the same name, who had died by May 1654.12A. and O. ii. 896. By contrast, the MP’s career was almost entirely centred on the West Indies, and he may have been involved with colonial trade from the late 1640s, when his brother invested, as a merchant-planter, in the importing of sugar and tobacco from Barbados.13Vide supra, ‘Martin Noell’. Thomas was certainly settled in Barbados by April 1652, when he acted as ‘recorder’ for the will of one Angus Lamont, and he was a captain in the Barbados regiment by September 1653.14Barbados Recs. i. ed. Sanders, 214; CSP Col. 1574-1660, 408. In the latter month, the governor of Barbados, Colonel Daniel Searle, complained to the council of state that ‘restless spirits’ in the island’s assembly, opposed to the commonwealth, had challenged his authority. The row had flared up after the assembly had objected to a remonstrance from a group of officers, including ‘Captain Thomas Noell’, directed to the council, ‘in which it is endeavoured to make the representatives odious’.15CSP Col. 1574-1660, p. 408; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 189n. Searle, who had business dealings with Martin Noell and his ally Thomas Povey*, supported Thomas Noell in this dispute, and in August 1654 Oliver Cromwell* apparently concurred, ordering that Noell be appointed as principal secretary to the governor and council of Barbados.16Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 400.

When the Western Design was put into action, and an army under General Robert Venables* sent to capture Hispaniola, Thomas Noell was an essential business partner for his brother and his associates in London, who were involved in organising the expedition. He was also drawn into the military side of the expedition, as an officer of the Barbados regiment originally commanded by Lewis Morris and then transferred by Venables to his own protégé, Edward Doyley.17Narrative of General Venables ed. Firth, 121. Even before the attempt on Hispaniola, Noell’s involvement had engendered controversy, and, with one Colonel Thomas Modyford, was described as ‘hugely distasted by this island, for that they two, as the islanders say, did invite our forces over hither, which our islanders are generally against’.18TSP iii. 159. In June 1655, when Noell reported to his brother the failure of Venables’s army, he was keen to play down its significance, emphasising that they had gone on to tackle Jamaica, reinforced by more ships from Barbados, ‘which, I hope, will beget fresh courage and new resolves in them’. He did not blame Venables directly, instead saying that ‘I do perceive the general is much discouraged with his common soldiery for their cowardice’; and in the same letter he made it clear that his own role in the design was financial as well as military: he had received and unshipped supplies sent by his brother from England, and he hoped to begin talks with the governor of Barbados concerning ‘what farther, or how, he will do or dispose of your business’.19TSP iii. 514-15.

As well as acting as his brother’s factor in Barbados, during this period Noell acquired a land holding of his own, purchased jointly with his brother from one James Cooke, although its extent is unclear.20Barbados Recs. i. 76. As secretary to the governor and council, he was at the very heart of the island’s government. Noell’s responsibilities included the recording and proving of wills, and he performed this function on numerous occasions during the decade.21Barbados Recs. i. 149, 155, 214, 228, 234. He also sat (presumably ex officio) on the Barbadian assembly, signing its letter to Cromwell on 27 March 1656 protesting of ‘the unsettledness of the militia of this place, lately constituted by General Venables, by reason of his person being withdrawn from the Indies’ and asking that the governor might be authorised ‘to take the military power of this island into his hands again as formerly’.22TSP iv. 651-2. In the mid-1650s, Noell also invested in the plantation of Surinam on the South American mainland, which had been championed by Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham. Thomas Povey tried to get his own brother to invest in 1657, commenting that

I being promised by Mr Thomas Noell (whom I have had opportunity to oblige at his being here lately in England) that he will be ready to serve you with his utmost interest, he having laid out near £5,000 in a plantation, and having near 100 servants there, and a park enclosed for deer.23Add. 11411, f. 17.

By the beginning of 1658, Povey considered Noell to be a man of great influence in Barbados, and warned his brother, who sought a position on the island, that ‘the omission was great of not applying to Mr Thomas Noell’ in support of it.24Add. 11411, f. 52, Noell’s prominence did not prevent rivals at London from conspiring against him, but, as Povey told Searle, ‘his highness will not be drawn to the doing of anything for the unsettling of Mr Thomas Noell’.25Add. 11411, f. 58v.

Noell’s election for Liskeard in Cornwall in January 1659 was probably part of a wider scheme by supporters of the protectorate to gain safe seats. Indeed, he may have returned to England specifically to serve in Parliament. The key figure in his election was probably Thomas Povey, who sat for Bossiney and also secured a seat at West Looe for William Whitelocke*.26Whitelocke, Diary, 504. Povey represented Liskeard in the 1640s, and it is likely that he used his local influence – and that of his Cornish friends, like the Bullers – to organise the seat for Noell. Povey’s activities may have been seconded by the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, who was related to the Noells through marriage. Noell’s activity during Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament is mostly obscure, but he made one recorded speech, on 30 March, in which he defended his brother against accusations of selling Rowland Thomas and other royalists into slavery in the colonial plantations. Claiming expert knowledge of the case, Noell protested that Thomas

in the Barbados had equal freedom with any person, to ride on horseback, and had a footman. He has run away [from the island] £200 in debt. He has been since in France, and with Charles Stuart. I am able to affirm, on my own knowledge, that what he affirms as to his usage in that island is very false. I would therefore have him secured.27Burton’s Diary, iv. 305.

In supporting his brother, Noell was also defending Secretary Thurloe against what were essentially political charges intended to discredit the protectorate as a whole.

The fall of the protectorate, so damaging to the fortunes of Martin Noell and Thomas Povey, was also a risky time for Thomas Noell. At the end of April 1659 Noell hurried back to Barbados, with instructions to ‘consult with’ Colonel Searle on the management of the colony.28Add. 11411, f. 84. It is clear that Noell had just received a major grant from Richard Cromwell – apparently an office in the civil government of Barbados – and this was now likely to fall through. As Povey and Martin Noell told Searle, Thomas Noell ‘hath obtained a patent from his late highness … our judgement is that as things now stand, he shall not produce that patent nor enrol it as yet among your records, because the erecting a new office, how necessary soever it appeared to his highness and council here, may give offence’.29Add. 11411, f. 84v. Efforts to get the patent confirmed by the new commonwealth regime failed, but Noell insisted on claiming his new office regardless, causing Povey to complain in September 1659 that he

would have advised him better than to have produced his new patent, which reason could not but draw upon itself a just discountenance, and an inconvenience upon such other patents as perhaps would have been under less exception, if that had not so unseasonably showed itself and stirred the spleen of those peevish persons who sit themselves to an opposition of everything against which they can raise the least pretences.30Eg. 2395, f. 179.

Noell lost his position in the Barbadian administration soon after the Restoration. Even though his brother managed to curry favour with the new regime, in 1661 Noell’s secretariat was reassigned to Edward Bradbourne, who claimed in a petition to Charles II that Noell had been ‘willing’ to surrender it.31CSP Col. 1661-8, p. 33. In the spring of 1662 Noell was in London: he and his wife Martha presented their son Martin for baptism in the City in early April.32St Botolph Bishopsgate par. reg. The baby’s uncle Martin Noell’s death in 1665, and the heavy debts that he had accrued, seem to have had a devastating impact on Thomas Noell’s finances. Thomas was named in his brother’s will, and at this stage he was still styled ‘of Surinam’.33Barbados Recs. ii. ed. J.M. Sanders (Missouri, 1980), 258. But by July 1668 he had sold his plantation lands in Barbados, which he had held jointly with his brother, to one James Clinkett; and his will, drafted in January 1669, described him as ‘Thomas Noell of Hammersmith in the parish of Fulham in the county of Middlesex’ and made no mention of colonial property, instead saying that he was ‘now intending to make a voyage to Ireland’.34Barbados Recs. i. 76; PROB11/387/268. It is uncertain whether this new ‘colonial’ adventure ever took place. In his will, Noell appointed as overseers his ‘loving friend’ and fellow colonial, Charles Modyford, and the London scrivener, Thomas Massam, with the executrix and main beneficiary being his wife, Martha. When probate was granted, in May 1687, Noell had been dead for some time, as his executrix was now named as ‘Martha Ballard alias Noell’, wife of John Ballard – who may have been a member of the Barbadian family of the same name.35PROB11/387/268; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 703-4. According to Noell’s will of 1669, he had no surviving children.36PROB11/387/268.