POCHIN, Thomas (1619-93), of Barkby Hall, Leics.

The Pochin family had settled in Barkby, near Leicester, which they had acquired through marriage by the end of the fourteenth century.21Fletcher, Leics. Peds. 36. Pochin’s grandfather had purchased the manor, rectory and advowson of Barkby in 1604 and had also owned land in the neighbouring parish of Scraptoft.22Fletcher, Leics. Peds. 37; Nichols, Leics. iii. 48; VCH Leics. v. 290; Coventry Docquets, 595, 641. When Pochin’s father, George, had apparently been in trouble with the authorities in 1638, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, and other seven other Leicestershire magistrates had certified that they had known him ‘these many years, and we did never know him troublesome or contentious amongst his neighbours, nor that he ever sued any man during the time of our knowledge of him, but hath always lived and behaved himself in the fashion of a gentleman’.23SP16/408/100, f. 193; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 268.

Neither Pochin nor his father played any known part in the first civil war, although both were listed in 1645 among a group of Leicestershire parliamentarians – most of them allies of Thomas Lord Grey of Groby* – ‘of known integrity and abilities, who suffered both in their persons and estates for their affections to the public’.24Supra, ‘Thomas Beaumont’; ‘Thomas Lord Grey of Groby’; infra, ‘William Quarles’; An Examination of a Printed Pamphlet (1645), 5 (E.261.3); Nichols, Leics. iii. app. iv. 51. However, the county committeemen who backed Grey of Groby’s Leicestershire rival, Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, claimed that both Pochin senior and junior were such as they had (unspecified) ‘exceptions against’.25Supra, ‘Sir Arthur Hesilrige’; An Examination Examined (1645), 14-15 (E.303.13). Pochin was a member of the Leicestershire sub-committee of accounts that imprisoned Hesilrige’s confederate Colonel Francis Hacker* in the autumn of 1646 ‘for his contempt in not bringing in his accounts ... after many summons’. Hacker subsequently sued Pochin and his colleagues on charges of false imprisonment.26Supra, ‘Committee of Accounts’; ‘Francis Hacker’. Appointed to successive Leicestershire assessment commissions under the Rump, Pochin was active in local government after the regicide and by 1654 had apparently been commissioned a major in the county militia.27SP28/161, pt. 3, unfol.; CJ vi. 272b; vii. 371a.

Pochin was one of seven candidates who stood for Leicestershire in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654. One observer discerned two parties on election day, with Pochin part of the dominant interest headed by the earl of Stamford, Grey of Groby* and Thomas Beaumont*. In the event, the voters returned Pochin in fourth place behind Beaumont, Stamford and Grey of Groby.28Supra, ‘Leicestershire’; The Faithful Scout no. 192 (11-18 Aug. 1654), 1519 (E.233.5). Unlike Stamford and Grey of Groby, Pochin and Beaumont were included on the list of Members approved by the council early in September.29Severall Procs. of State Affaires no. 258 (31 Aug.-7 Sept. 1654), 4093 (E.233.22).

Pochin presumably subscribed the Recognition, acknowledging the validity of the protectoral settlement, but received no appointments before being granted a month’s leave of absence on 27 September 1654.30CJ vii. 371a. He had returned to the House by 31 October, when he was almost certainly the ‘Major Pudsey Pochin’ named to a committee for considering the petition of Sir William Killigrew† and other adventurers concerned with the drainage of the Lindsey level in Lincolnshire.31CJ vii. 380a. The only other reference to him in the records of this Parliament is his addition on 7 December to the committee for the bill for uniting parishes, which was charged with the task of considering measures to improve the financial provisions for ‘able, godly and painful ministers ... for discovery and confutation of errors, heresy and whatsoever is contrary to sound doctrine’.32CJ vii. 397b. As a Cromwellian militia commissioner for Leicestershire, he assisted Major-general Edward Whalley* in administering the decimation tax in 1655 and 1656.33TSP iv. 248, 335.

Re-elected for Leicestershire to the second protectoral Parliament in 1656, Pochin was again named to only two committees – for investigating abuses in manorial officers (13 Oct.); and on a bill to confirm the sale of the lands of Ferdinando Hastings†, earl of Huntingdon (6 Dec.) – on both occasions with Thomas Beaumont.34CJ vii. 438a, 465a. The two men were absent at the call of the House at the end of that month, but were excused by Major-general Whalley on the grounds that ‘they have attended hitherto’.35Burton’s Diary, i. 285. Although Pochin made no further discernible impression upon the proceedings of this Parliament, he was still in London in February 1657, when he joined Beaumont, William Quarles* and William Stanley* in a letter to Leicester’s municipal leaders, urging them, ‘for the Gospel’s sake’, to support the efforts of the town’s godly minister, William Barton, to reconcile Presbyterians and Independents and to ‘agree in some way of discipline’ that would ensure ‘all such who are neither ignorant nor scandalous may be admitted to [receive the] sacrament, though differing in their judgements’.36Leicester Bor. Recs. iv. 437-8; Oxford DNB, ‘William Barton’.

In the autumn of 1658, Pochin, Beaumont and Hacker headed the signatories of Leicestershire’s loyal address to Richard Cromwell* on his succession as protector, requesting that he ‘endeavour the just freedom and liberty of these nations … according to the Humble Petition and Advice’.37Bodl. Rawl. A.61, f. 164; A True Catalogue (1659), 42 (E.999.12). In the elections to the third protectoral Parliament of 1659, Pochin stood as a candidate for Leicester, coming third on a poll with 21 votes – less than half that of the second placed candidate.38Supra, ‘Leicester’; Leics. RO, BRII/18/29, f. 687.

At the Restoration, Pochin’s father was nominated to the proposed order of the Royal Oak, when his estate was reckoned to be worth approximately £1,000 a year.39Burke, Commoners, i. 690. Pochin himself was omitted from the Leicestershire bench in about October 1660 and did not resume an important role in local government until his appointment as county sheriff in 1669.40List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 75. There is no evidence that he sought election to Parliament after 1660.

Pochin died on 26 November 1693 and was buried on 29 November at Barkby.41Fletcher, Leics. Peds. 37. In his will, he made bequests totalling about £320. His personal estate was valued at £821.42Leics. RO, DG27, Box 4911. Pochin’s great grandson represented Leicestershire from 1780 to 1798.43HP Commons, 1754-90, ‘William Pochin’.