BURTON, William (c.1608-73), of Greyfriars, Great Yarmouth, Norf.

Of obscure origin, Burton was a wealthy merchant and ship owner of Great Yarmouth. His date of birth can only be estimated from his age at the time of his death.17Blomefield, Norf. xi. 380. He first surfaces in September 1641 when he was admitted as a Great Yarmouth common councilman.18Norf. RO, Y/C 19/6, f. 490. Probably he was then already making his mark as a merchant, presumably trading primarily from Great Yarmouth.

In July of the following year he was fined 6d by the corporation for having attended a church service on 29 June without wearing his civic gown.19Norf. RO, Y/C 19/6, f. 511. He was quick to donate silver and money worth £20 for the defence of the town on behalf of Parliament in the summer of 1642.20H. Swinden, Hist. and Antiquities of the Ancient Burgh of Gt. Yarmouth (Norwich, 1772), 126. He was also included on the committee appointed by the corporation to consider how to implement the order of the Commons of 23 August 1643 that protection was to be provided for fishing boats operating from the town.21CJ iii. 216b; Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 19v. That would be a recurring concern throughout his career. In December 1643 he was among members of the corporation who disassociated themselves from the proposal that a military governor be appointed for Great Yarmouth.22Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 30. At his own expense, he shipped military supplies to King’s Lynn in the spring of 1644.23Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 37, 38. In early 1648 he travelled to London on behalf of the town in connection with the ships to be supplied for service on behalf of Parliament, while that spring he helped set up an artillery company within the town.24Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 118, 121, 123. On 7 July 1648, at the height of the second civil war, he joined other members of the corporation in declaring support for the king and Parliament, which in this context really meant their support for the latter.25Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 124v.

A few details can already be inferred about his religious beliefs. In 1642 he had been included on the corporation’s committee on the appointment of a new curate for St Nicholas’s.26Norf. RO, Y/C 19/6, f. 516v. In 1643, William Bridge, who had been appointed as the town preacher in 1642, founded an Independent congregation within the town. Burton, or perhaps his wife, Martha, seems to have been associated with that group from the start, as two of their children were baptised there as early as 1644 and 1646.27Brown, ‘Baptisms and other deaths’, 9, 10. But Burton himself was not formally admitted as a member of that congregation until 1652.28E.J. Clowes, Chronicles of the Old Congregational Church at Gt. Yarmouth (Gt. Yarmouth, 1906), 48; Brown, ‘Baptisms and other deaths’, 35.

In August 1649, following a purge of the corporation, Burton was promoted to become an alderman. He was then immediately appointed as joint bailiff for the next year.29Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 150v, 151v. Towards the end of his year in that office, his colleagues agreed to admit one of his apprentices and kinsmen, Thomas Burton, as a burgess in recognition of the heavy expenses Burton had incurred on behalf of the corporation without taking payment.30Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 171. However, his religious views created some tensions with colleagues. In June 1650, while bailiff, he led the opposition to the appointment of a Presbyterian, John Allen, vicar of Mettingham, as the lecturer of St Nicholas’s.31Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 167v. Moreover, during his year as bailiff, Burton oversaw the building work in St Nicholas’s, which involved building a wall across the chancel to provide separate accommodation for Bridge’s congregation. This involved demolishing the tomb of one of his fifteenth-century predecessors, Robert Crowmer†.32C.J. Palmer, Hist. of Gt. Yarmouth (Gt. Yarmouth, 1866), 128-9; Clowes, Chronicles, 28-9. In June 1651, following disagreements among members of the corporation over the draft provisions for the bill for the maintenance of the Yarmouth minister, he complained to the Committee for Indemnity about the behaviour of his successor as bailiff.33Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 205v, 206.

There is no reason to suppose that Burton had actually fought during the civil war, but military affairs, particularly relating to the navy, came to dominate his life during the 1650s. In January 1650 the council of state ordered that three companies of foot were to be raised for the defence of Great Yarmouth. Burton, perhaps the prime mover behind this proposal, then became the major commanding those troops.34CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 495, 521; 1651, p. 193. In the summer of 1651 some of his ships were used to transport supplies to the army in Scotland.35CSP Dom. 1651, p. 582. The outbreak of war with the Dutch in 1652 considerably increased Great Yarmouth’s strategic significance. In September 1652 Burton advised the Admiralty that several ships were unsuitable for war service, while several weeks later he was allocated £300 by the council of state to pay for repairs to the town’s defences to be undertaken by George Monck*.36CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 445, 529; 1652-3, p. 483. The following February he oversaw the recruitment of men for naval service.37CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 527, 552; 1653-4, p. 548. He then turned down an offer from the Admiralty commissioners of a ship’s command, on the grounds that he had promised to supply so many goods on his own credit that he needed to be sure they were actually delivered.38CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 540. Those goods included commodities as various as rope, beer, gunpowder, hammocks, tar and masts.39CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 555, 570, 572, 578, 579, 581, 582, 585, 587, 589, 591, 592, 594, 599, 601, 606, 611, 612. He meanwhile passed on to London any news about developments at sea.40CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 316, 359, 595, 598, 608.

Burton’s appointment to the Nominated Assembly as a Member for Norfolk is not surprising given his friendship with Bridge and his position as a trusted agent of the Admiralty. He was then allocated lodgings in Whitehall, which he occupied until April 1654.41CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 452; 1654, p. 70. His parliamentary activity mainly concerned Admiralty business. On 14 July he was one of five men added to the Admiralty commission on the recommendation of the council of state.42CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 19; CJ vii. 285a; A and O. Like Burton, the other new commissioners were religious radicals determined to shake up the navy.43B. Capp, Cromwell’s Navy (Oxford, 1989), 126. When, on 29 July, the House voted on the appointments of the new Admiralty judges, Burton and John Ireton* were the tellers for those who failed to secure the nomination of Richard Wollaston.44CJ vii. 292b. He was more successful when he reported from the Admiralty Committee on 28 November, as he secured Parliament’s agreement to the proposed payments for the families of the sea captains slain in the Dutch war.45CJ vii. 358b. He was also named to the committees on trade and corporations (20 July) and on the sale of forests (20 Sept.).46CJ vii. 287a, 322a. The Great Yarmouth corporation made use of his status as an MP and as an Admiralty commissioner in August 1653 when he petitioned the council of state on its behalf requesting naval protection for its fishing fleets.47CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 101-2.

Burton was listed in the 1654 pamphlet, A Catalogue of the Names of the Members of the Last Parliament, as one of those MPs who had been opposed to the public maintenance of a learned ministry. However, given that William Bridge, the Independent preacher whose services Burton attended, himself received public money, this has been cited as the strongest reason for thinking that this list was not always accurate.48Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 196, 412. On the other hand, in early 1654 Burton probably supported the moves to end the payments from the Great Yarmouth corporation to the local parish church, St Nicholas’s, to cover the costs of bread and wine for communion. Burton was certainly named to the committee which considered proposals that the clergymen and the parish clerk should be evicted from the houses provided for them by the corporation.49Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 241v. However, it is evident that Burton did not tolerate all forms of religious dissent: at the same time he was among those appointed by the council of state to investigate persons accused of disturbing a church service at Lowestoft.50CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 381-2; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 3.

Following its remodelling in early December 1653, Burton remained a member of the Admiralty commission under the protectorate.51A. and O.; Capp, Cromwell’s Navy, 126-7. Despite this appointment, he continued to be based at Great Yarmouth, organising supplies for the fleet and overseeing the construction of new ships for the navy.52CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 375, 562, 565, 567, 571-3, 575, 578, 581; 1654, pp. 102, 111, 466, 474; 1655, p. 423. On hearing news of the peace treaty with the Dutch in April 1654, he told his fellow Admiralty commissioners that he had caught a chill and almost lost his voice through overwork.53CSP Dom. 1654, p. 474. He was evidently still trading in a private capacity, as he and several other merchants were caught out by the Anglo-Scottish union that same month when they discovered that the shipment of French wine from Bordeaux to Leith which they had organised had become illegal.54CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 140, 153-4. Peace did not end Burton’s official duties at Great Yarmouth, although his work doubtless became less urgent. The immediate concern was protecting shipping against pirates.55CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 422, 423, 437, 444, 477, 528; 1655-6, pp. 169, 172, 265, 418, 423, 467, 470, 473, 481, 484, 488, 491, 494, 500, 503, 509, 511, 513, 514, 516, 522, 524, 529, 539, 545, 553, 558, 562, 564, 568, 573. In the spring of 1656 the lord protector ordered him to carry out repairs to the defences at Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.56CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 332.

In May 1656 Burton was on the delegation sent by the Great Yarmouth corporation to London to present the lord protector with a petition, which Burton had probably helped draft, setting out the sad state of the town in the wake of the recent Dutch war.57Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 267v, 275v. Meanwhile he had been commissioned to raise 300 men within the town, so the corporation asked him to seek assurances from Oliver Cromwell* that they would not be expected to pay to arm them.58Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 270. At about this time Burton was advising the Admiralty commission and the council of state that a prisoner exchange should be arranged with the Spanish Netherlands so that sailors from Great Yarmouth being held at Dunkirk and Ostend could be released.59CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 344; 1656-7, pp. 53, 83, 397, 406, 408, 416, 422. When the Great Yarmouth corporation decided to sell Cobholm Island, an area of marshland to the north of the town, in order to raise money for repairs to the harbour, Burton offered £555, but in the short term received the lands on mortgage for £250. The following year, however, the lands were sold to Alexander Bence*.60Swinden, Hist. 474-5. Burton’s pre-eminence in the town’s affairs was confirmed in August 1656 when, along with Charles George Cock*, he was elected as its MP. He agreed to serve without wages.61Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 279.

Any assessment of Burton’s contribution to the second protectoral Parliament is complicated by the presence of the Westmorland MP, Thomas Burton*. In compiling the Journal, the clerks usually seem to have distinguished them by describing William as ‘Major Burton’, although possibly some references to ‘Mr Burton’ may also relate to him. What is clear is that ‘Major Burton’ was busy during the first three months of this Parliament. The business of most immediate interest to William Burton would have been the bill for the maintenance of ministers at Great Yarmouth. While he may well have been less than enthusiastic about this measure, he was nevertheless named to the committee on the bill (14 Nov. 1656).62CJ vii. 453b. He was also named to the committees on a similar bill for Northampton (17 Dec.), and on the bill confirming incumbents in possession of sequestered ecclesiastical benefices (4 Oct.).63CJ vii. 434a, 469a. Assorted other committee appointments included those on Irish affairs (23 Sept.), the regulation of artificers’ wages (7 Oct.), the price of wine (9 Oct.), abuses by attorneys and solicitors (13 Oct.), the law on wrecks (28 Oct.), the abolition of purveyance (3 Nov.), the fate of Gloucester Cathedral (22 Nov.).64CJ vii. 427a, 435b, 436b, 438a, 446b, 449b, 547a. He attended at least one meeting of the committee for trade, to which he had been named on 20 October, for he was present on 18 December when it discussed the dispute between the cloth workers and the Merchant Adventurers.65CJ vii. 442a; Burton’s Diary, i. 175. Burton was granted leave on 20 December 1656 on the motion of another Admiralty official, Henry Hatsell*, after complaining that the House's decision not to allow leave of absence was unjust.66CJ vii. 471b; Burton’s Diary, i. 192, 196.

He had evidently returned by 28 February 1657 when he was the first Member to be named to the committee to receive an account of the condition of James Naylor from the governors of Bridewell prison.67CJ vii. 497b. His reappearance at Westminster may be explained by the fact the Great Yarmouth corporation planned that he should present to Parliament another petition on their economic difficulties.68Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 285. But, if this was ever organised, Parliament never received it. Another reason for his return may well have been his interest in the second chamber which was envisaged in the Remonstrance under consideration by MPs. During the debate on its fifth article concerning the powers of that House on 11 March, Burton acted as teller in favour of putting the question that the quorum should be 31. The next day he was appointed to the committee to examine the Other House’s judicial functions.69CJ vii. 501b, 502b. Burton was said to have favoured the offer of the crown to Cromwell.70A Narrative of the late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). That would explain why he was later included on the committees to prepare reasons to encourage Cromwell to accept what had since become the Humble Petition and Advice (6 Apr.) and to receive from Cromwell his explanation for his reluctance to do so (9 Apr.).71CJ vii. 520b, 521b.

On 28 April 1657 Burton ‘very fiercely’ objected to the attempts to introduce a bill to amend the 1654 Act on the jurisdiction of the court of Admiralty. His objections were ignored.72Burton’s Diary, ii. 58. The House then moved on to debate whether to accept the recommendations from the committee on the bill to eject scandalous ministers as to whether a time limit should be included. When the motion was put to a vote, the Speaker, Sir Thomas Widdrington*, declared for the noes, only for Burton to challenge this. The result was a division that revealed that Widdrington had called the result correctly by a considerable margin.73Burton’s Diary, ii. 58-59; CJ vii. 524b. Burton tried the same tactic with more success two days later, when the House considered the motion to confirm all the legislation passed by the Long Parliament between 1642 and 1653. When they voted on whether to amend this motion to exclude anything contrary of the Humble Petition and Advice, Widdrington declared for the yeas. Burton challenged this, thereby forcing a division, in which he and Martin Noell* were tellers for the noes. This time Burton turned out to be correct (by 61 votes to 50).74Burton’s Diary, ii. 90; CJ vii. 528b.

In early June Parliament passed an Act allowing fish to be exported from British ports in foreign ships.75A. and O. ii. 1099-1100. The Great Yarmouth corporation subsequently included Burton on a delegation it sent to Cromwell to seek clarification about the implications of this legislation.76Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 293v. On 20 June he was one of those who shouted down one of the Bacon brothers (Nathaniell* or Francis*) when he attempted to report from the committee on the private bill for the earl and countess of Worcester (a committee of which Burton had been a member), so that the House could instead consider the bill for the better observation of the sabbath.77CJ vii. 504a, 529b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 261, 265. Two days later Burton was a teller in the division on the rate to be set for unsold wine in the excise bill.78CJ vii. 568b.

Burton spent some time back in Great Yarmouth during the final weeks of this Parliament’s first session. One of his priorities now was supplying the English forces campaigning in Flanders.79CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 56, 384, 413, 415, 431, 442, 447, 452, 459, 484, 487, 490. In December 1657, anticipating the recall of this Parliament the following month, the Great Yarmouth corporation instructed Burton to raise their concerns regarding the regulation of herring fishing.80Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 300. At the beginning of the second session Burton spoke against the proposal to revive the Westminster Assembly, on the grounds that it would too expensive and that it had already achieved all that it was likely to (21 Jan. 1658.).81Burton’s Diary, ii. 335. (This may have been an echo of Bridge’s views, as he had sat in the assembly.) The next day Burton was named to the committee on the bill for the registration of births, marriages and deaths, which prompted him to move that the probate bill should be read.82CJ vii. 581a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 338. He was then added to the committee for the maintenance of ministers (23 Jan.).83CJ vii. 581b. On 30 January he presented a petition from the purchasers of the confiscated estates of the royalist William, 1st Baron Craven.84Burton’s Diary, ii. 345. Later that day he and Samuel Moody* queried the claim by the better-informed John Trevor* that the Journal had avoided using the term ‘the Other House’.85Burton’s Diary, ii. 399. Burton continued to view the Dutch as the principal foreign threat. In November 1658 he reported to his fellow Admiralty commissioners that the sailors at Great Yarmouth were delighted to hear of the Swedish military successes against them.86CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 470.

Cock and Burton were returned by Great Yarmouth as its MPs for Richard Cromwell’s Parliament. Their re-election, on 5 January 1659, was probably unopposed, although, unlike that of Cock, Burton’s seems not to have been unanimous.87Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff.318-20. During his absence in London for this Parliament, his son, William junior, deputised for him in his naval duties at Great Yarmouth.88CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 514, 516, 519, 547, 561. On the opening day of the new Parliament (27 Jan.) Burton lost no time in moving for a day of humiliation, but his motion went unseconded.89Burton’s Diary, iii. 6. The next day he was among those who spoke successfully in favour of having the fast sermon preached in the House rather than at St Margaret’s.90Burton’s Diary, iii. 12. On 2 February he moved that a grand committee of religion be appointed, but was ‘called down’.91Burton’s Diary, iii. 34. When the ex-royalist Edmund Jones* was expelled from the House on 12 February, Burton thought that sending him to the Tower was an insufficient punishment and demanded ‘something more than ordinary’.92Burton’s Diary, iii. 240, 241. On 17 February he suggested Adam Baynes* for appointment to the committee on the army accounts, although this was rejected on the grounds that Baynes had a salaried office.93Burton’s Diary, iii. 310-11. During the debates on 21 March on whether the Scottish MPs should be allowed to sit, he expressed the view that no more time should be wasted on the matter.94Burton’s Diary, iv. 219. The same frustration was evident the following day, when, as John Trevor tried to speak on the right of the Irish MPs to sit, Burton interrupted, saying that MPs had heard from Trevor too often already.95Burton’s Diary, iv. 232. When, during the debate on 28 March on transacting business with the Other House, a division was held on whether to adjourn for an hour, Burton objected to the attempt to lock the door of the chamber and then tried to slip out before the division took place.96Burton’s Diary, iv. 286. The debate on 11 April about granting a passport to Lord Craven encouraged some MPs to voice concerns about potential royalist plotters being allowed into the country. Burton agreed, pointing to rumours that they included Edward Massie*.97Burton’s Diary, iv. 391. Assuming that the clerks continued to distinguish him as ‘Major Burton’, he was named to just two committees during this Parliament, namely, those on Scottish affairs (1 Apr.) and to consider the petition from sick and maimed soldiers (7 Apr.).98CJ vii. 623b, 627b.

In late July 1659, aware that royalist risings were planned in various parts of the country, the council of state authorised Burton and Thomas Toll II* to call out the Norfolk militia. He seems then to have done so promptly.99CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 51, 93-4. Meanwhile, he continued to raise the plight of the English sailors being held hostage in the Spanish Netherlands.100CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 6, 69-71, 128-9, 392, 396, 399, 547, 559. That August he was elected as bailiff of the town for a second time.101Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 332v. By late March 1660 he was refusing to supply goods to any of the navy ships operating from Great Yarmouth, although he continued to transact Admiralty business until late May.102CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 403-4, 559. In the Great Yarmouth elections for the Convention on 12 April, Burton may well have taken the lead in attempting to secure the choice of Sir John Palgrave* and Miles Corbett*, a last-ditch effort by the Independent burgesses in the town that was later overturned by the Commons.103Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 334v; House of Commons 1660-1690. Burton’s fortunes soon changed dramatically, as later that year he was one of the 20 men barred by name in the Act of Indemnity from holding any public office ever again.104SR. The Great Yarmouth corporation immediately dismissed him from office as their bailiff and as an alderman.105Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 359.

Burton fled to Rotterdam in 1661, by his own later account, to escape his creditors over the debts he had incurred as a navy supplier. In Holland he practised ‘merchandizing’ in order ‘to prevent the ruin of himself and family’.106CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 36. Accused of treason during the second Dutch war, he was summoned to return to England ‘to undergo legal trial’ by royal proclamation in April 1666.107CSP Dom. 1665-6, p. 342. He denied ‘intermeddling’ with the Dutch and received a pardon on 14 May 1668, although the authorities continued to view his activities with suspicion.108CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 279, 282, 374, 391; 1668-9, p. 387. In his absence, his house in Greyfriars at Great Yarmouth (the site of which is now the Old Meeting Unitarian Church) was used as a meeting house by local nonconformists.109CSP Dom. 1670, pp. 321, 373; Clowes, Chronicles, 51.

Burton travelled over to England in late January 1672, along with Thomas Kelsey* and, according to one report, John Disbrowe*.110CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 105, 116, 121. That visit was only brief, but in mid-April he returned again and this time remained for good.111CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 329, 339, 345. That decision was clearly prompted by the king’s declaration of indulgence and, within days of his return, his house had been licensed for congregational preaching.112CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 345, 371. Burton died a year later on 8 April 1673 and was buried in St Nicholas’s, Great Yarmouth, where his epitaph read, ‘He lived to Christ, he died in Christ, and must appear with Christ, disturb not then his dust’.113Blomefield, Norf. xi. 380. His eldest son had died in 1659.114CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 70. His principal heir was therefore his surviving son, John†, although Burton’s widow, Martha, received a life interest in the house in Greyfriars. His various bequests amounted to £1,370, including a payment of £20 to the poor of the Yarmouth congregational church.115PROB11/342, ff. 18-19v. John, who sat for Great Yarmouth in 1701, married Disbrowe’s daughter, Anne, in 1675.