FOTHERGILL, John (d.1668), of Sudbury, Suff.

John Fothergill’s origins are entirely unknown. The surname was not one with particular Suffolk associations and there is nothing which can firmly connect him to the only gentry family of that name, the Fothergills of Ravenstone Dale, Westmorland, although some of the Fothergills in Suffolk may later have used the same armorial bearings as their Westmorland counterparts.20C. Thornton and F. McLaughlin, The Fothergills of Ravenstondale (1905); Add. 19130, f. 95; B. Burke, The General Armory (1884), 370. It seems far more likely that the MP was related to the family of apothecaries, some of whom were from Epperstone in Nottinghamshire.21C. Wall, H.C. Cameron and E.A. Underwood, Hist. of the Worshipful Soc. of Apothecaries (1963), 281, 322-3, 329, 403-4, 405, plate XXIV; GL, MS 8200/2, f. 34. John Fothergill himself practised as an apothecary in Sudbury and, although he was never an apprentice or a freeman of the Society of Apothecaries in London, that trade was probably always his main source of income.22J.H. Raach, A Directory of English Country Physicians 1603-1643 (1962), 46; PROB4/17584; GL, MS 8200/1-2. His links with Sudbury seem to date from at least the late 1620s. In March 1629, a John Fothergill married Elizabeth Howe at Great Cornard, a village just outside Sudbury, and three years later her brother, Robert Howe of Sudbury, named Fothergill as his executor. Four days after Howe prepared his will, on 27 May 1632, Fothergill witnessed the will of another Sudbury gentleman, Thomas Smyth.23Gt. Cornard par. reg.; Wills Archdeaconry Sudbury 1630-1635 ed. Evans, 177, 194. At some point he was appointed to the Sudbury corporation and he is known to have been present at the meeting on 16 March 1640 at which Sir Robert Crane* and Richard Pepys* were elected as the town’s MPs.24Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. From 1642 he served for two years as one of the bailiffs.25Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol.

Fothergill’s service in the parliamentarian armies during the 1640s is almost as sketchily recorded as his early life, but this must have launched his rather better recorded career in the 1650s. By 1643 he was serving as a captain, probably already in the regiment of Francis Russell*.26SP28/11, f. 8; SP28/25, ff. 367, 391, 393, 404, 427, 429; Davies, ‘Army of the Eastern Association’, 93. He did so despite simultaneously serving as town bailiff. He probably lost his military position in the re-organization of the army in early 1645 but soon found a new role as a colonel in the Suffolk militia. That can be inferred from the fact that in June 1645 Oliver Cromwell*, who had just been appointed by the Commons to take charge of the garrison at Ely, wrote to one of his officers there to warn that Colonel Fothergill was to keep the defences heavily protected.27Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 354. Several months later, while visiting Suffolk to preside as the judge at the Bury St Edmunds witch trials, John Godbold* was entertained at Sudbury by the corporation in the house of ‘Colonel Fothergill’, and, at some point during that year, the mayor of Sudbury also paid £2 2s 8d to ‘Col. Fothergill’ for his services on behalf of the town.28Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol.

In time Fothergill’s position in the militia established him as a figure of importance in Suffolk county politics. Three of the four infantry regiments sent by the Suffolk militia to recapture Colchester for Parliament in the summer of 1648 were commanded respectively by Fothergill, Sir Thomas Barnardiston* and William Bloys*.29Essex RO, D/DQs.18, f. 42; Diary of the Siege of Colchester; HMC 12th Rep. IX, 26; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 286; Ive, ‘Local dimension’, 230. Unlike Barnardiston and Bloys, Fothergill was not from one of the local gentry families and so had little more than his expertise to recommend him. Two years later, in June 1650, he was given the command of one of the three permanent Suffolk regiments of foot.30CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 507, 508, 512; SP25/119, pp. 65-6; Ive, ‘Local dimension’, 230-1; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA54/1/9: John Fothergill to Brampton Gurdon, 1 Sept. 1649. When the government in London began raising volunteer forces to repel the southward advance of Charles Stuart and the Scots in 1651, it turned to him to recruit an emergency regiment in Suffolk and these volunteers went on to see action outside of their county during the Worcester campaign.31CSP Dom. 1651, p. 516; Ive, ‘Local dimension’, 232. Of too humble an origin to be easily accepted, Fothergill was not immediately promoted to fill the gaps in local administration created by the refusal of some to serve after January 1649. But, starting with the assessment commission in late 1652, by slow stages, he was eventually admitted to membership of most of the main county committees.32A. and O.

In Sudbury, a far smaller pond, acceptance was less difficult and by 1654 Fothergill was thought sufficiently important to become one of the town’s MPs. Possibly he had already ceased to be one of the town’s chief burgesses, although the arrangement in May 1650 whereby he bought out the crown’s fee farm rents in Sudbury (for an annual rent of £21 3s 1½d) shows that he retained an interest in the town’s affairs.33Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. Over the five months of this Parliament, Fothergill was appointed to three committees, including those on the legislation passed by the 1653 Nominated Parliament (10 Oct.) and on damnable heresies (12 Dec.).34CJ vii. 375b, 382a, 399b. This was a respectable record for a novice MP.

When it was feared in March 1655 that a royalist rebellion was imminent, Fothergill was one of the first to whom Hezekiah Haynes* turned to organize the Suffolk defences. He and John Moody (son of Samuel Moody*) were the two names Haynes suggested should be appointed to command the forces to be raised at once in Suffolk, for they were ‘persons both known and interested much’ who were ‘of very good affection’.35TSP iii. 228. It was Fothergill’s name which then headed the Suffolk list when new militia commissions were sent out in response to this crisis.36CSP Dom. 1655, p. 78. Writing to reassure Haynes that Sudbury had been put onto the alert, Fothergill expressed the hope that ‘as the Lord hitherto delivered you, so he will own us still, by discovering all their wicked plots, and preventing all their hellish intentions’.37TSP iii. 236-7. Meetings at Bury (at which he planned to consult with John Clarke*) then confirmed his appointment as colonel of one of the three temporary militia regiments to be raised in Suffolk.38TSP iii. 237, 247, 292, 294. He took care to keep Haynes informed about these developments. Haynes, in turn, praised Fothergill’s behaviour to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, observing that his ‘forwardness in this action deserves a particular character of respect’, adding that he was ‘very honest, and of good interest in the parts he lives in’.39TSP iii. 295. Fothergill was just the sort of trusted subordinate the unpopular Haynes needed after he became the deputy major-general for East Anglia later that year. Fothergill was one of the commissioners appointed to administer the decimation tax imposed on royalists.40PRO30/11/268, f. 7; TSP iv. 225, 272, 427.

There is no direct evidence as to who sat for Sudbury in the 1656 Parliament but, as the presence of Fothergill in this Parliament is not in doubt, it can safely be assumed that he had been re-elected for the seat. Once again, his recorded activities in this Parliament amount mainly to a series of committee appointments, mostly on minor matters.41CJ vii. 430a, 435b, 438a, 444a, 449a, 459a, 472b, 542a. His appointment to the committee on the bill for the purchase of impropriations (31 Mar. 1657) implies that he supported official assistance for ministers; this, along with his appointment to the heresy committee in the previous Parliament, is one of the few hints as to his religious beliefs.42CJ vii. 399b, 515b. He may have had a particular interest in the future of the civil lawyers. In both this Parliament and the previous one Fothergill was included on the committees considering their petitions.43CJ vii. 382a, 462b. On 5 January 1657, he evidently tried unsuccessfully to raise the subject of a petition from the tenants of Westminster. This attempted intervention may well have been the nearest he ever came to making a speech in the Commons.44Burton’s Diary, i. 299. The exact subject of the petition is unknown. It may have concerned the possible bill against new buildings, which some were already promoting, or the idea of a tax on buildings built in and around London in recent decades, which was soon to become the subject of discussion in the Commons.45CJ vii. 464a, 490b. Four months later, on 1 May, it was Fothergill’s own turn to petition Parliament, with Whalley (until recently one of the major-generals) acting as his intercessor in the Commons. Fothergill’s request that he be paid his army arrears encountered no opposition and another senior army officer, Francis White, secured consent to the view that Fothergill should receive bonds to guarantee payments. The trustees for the sale of the royal lands were ordered to proceed with the payments to him.46Burton’s Diary, ii. 94-5; CJ vii. 529a. Having secured this modest success, Fothergill remained in the chamber and later that day acted as teller for the noes with leading Presbyterian Alexander Thistlethwayte* in the adjournment division. They succeeded in blocking the move to adjourn the House over the weekend, probably so that they could receive Cromwell’s response to their motion on the validity of the acts and ordinances passed by the Long Parliament.47CJ vii. 529b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 101.

The restoration of the old franchises for the elections to the 1659 Parliament allowed the Sudbury corporation to return both Fothergill and its mayor, Samuel Hasell*. By now, Fothergill was no longer one of its chief burgesses, but when he had ceased to hold that place is unclear. A list showing that ‘Col. Fothergill’ was one of the members of the corporation who had contributed to the cost of new town maces may date from as late as 1658, which points to its being the remodelling of the corporation under the new charter of July 1658 which had ended his service as a burgess.48Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. However, the election result suggests that the new body had few reservations about Fothergill continuing to represent them. Once elected, he was invisible in the records of this Parliament. In the meantime, he had continued to supervise the Suffolk militia and he spent part of the summer of 1659 searching the county for royalists, arresting several suspects in the process.49CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 169, 224; 1659-60, pp. 15-16; CCSP iv. 308. When in January 1660 the recalled Rump set about removing the more radical officers, Fothergill was briefly recalled to full-time service in the army. The list of those proposed for commissions in the regiment to be commanded by Colonel Jeremiah Camfield was initially recommitted by the Commons on 12 January; but, when the revised list was submitted on 23 January, the recommendations for Captain William Cash’s company were unaltered. Fothergill was therefore confirmed by the Commons as the lieutenant in that company.50CJ vii. 810b, 818b. It can be assumed that he was among the officers who, in return for their arrears, agreed to resign their commissions to the king later that year.

Fothergill’s involvement in local government ended abruptly with the Restoration. He was not continued as a militia officer and his name was soon omitted from the commissions of the peace, for the militia and for the assessment. He was too much of an upstart to be looked on with favour by those who now resumed control in Suffolk, even had he been willing to serve as an agent of the restored monarchy.

The remaining eight years of his life seem to have been spent quietly in Sudbury. The main beneficiaries of his will, drawn up in late July 1668, were his wife and his eldest son, William, who were left his house and apothecary shop in Sudbury, including the accoutrements of his trade: ‘physical compositions’, ‘chemical oils and salts’, ‘drugs and small things’, ‘comfits and other sweet meats’, ‘tobaccos’ and ‘grocery wares’.51PROB4/17584. William was also bequeathed properties in the nearby village of Little Waldingfield, while the other son, Thomas (who had already been given his father’s book collection), received two acres of land on the outskirts of Sudbury. A sum of £180 was divided between William and the three daughters. At some point over the next four months Fothergill died, with the formalities of probate being completed in late November 1668.52PROB11/328/321. The later history of the family is almost as obscure as its ancestry. His sons carried on the apothecary business in Sudbury and during the closing years of the century there were several Fothergills living in south-west Suffolk at Sudbury and Lavenham. None of these later members of the family entered Parliament.53Add. 19130, f. 95.