SKUTT, George (d. 1670/1), of Poole, Dorset.

Skutt’s father, George senior, had by the early 1620s become one of a handful of important burgesses who dominated the political and economic life of the borough of Poole. He was elected mayor for the first of four terms of office in 1621, in 1623 was listed as one of the six principal burgesses of the town, and during the 1630s again served as mayor and senior burgess.20Hutchins, Dorset, i. 34; Vis. Dorset 1623 (Harl. Soc. xx), 1; Poole Borough Archives, MS 32 (10), unfol.; MSS MA39, MA45, MA43, unfol. George senior’s influence within the borough was based on his involvement with the lucrative Newfoundland trade. In 1621-2 the borough’s port-books show that he was importing large quantities of salted fish, ‘train oil’ and other commodities from north America.21E190/873/2, ff. 9, 10v, 17v, 18. The Newfoundland ships arrived each autumn, and during the rest of the year he was active in importing and exporting cloth and salt.22E190/873/2, ff. 7v, 12v, 13, 18v. Yet, for all his prosperity, Skutt senior was hard hit by the general decline in the trans-Atlantic trade during Charles I’s reign: in the autumn of 1638 his fish imports had fallen to less than a third of the level of the early 1620s, and he seems to have been diversifying into the wine, vinegar and resin businesses.23E190/877/3, ff. 8-9. George Skutt junior shared in his father’s successes and failures. The date of his admission as burgess is not known, but he was probably the George Skutt who served as the borough’s collector of revenues from 1633.24Poole Borough Archives, MS MA 39, MA 45. He and his elder brother, William, were later described as ‘having a stock in partnership … consisting of parts of shipping adventures at sea’ with their father, and by the mid-1640s he seems to have specialised in the trade of grain and malt, perhaps encouraged by his ownership of the town’s brewery.25PROB11/235/98; Poole Borough Archives, MS MA165 (A.4); C54/3234.

In the early years of the civil war, George Skutt senior was named to local parliamentary commissions and was made a member of the county committee.26A. and O.; Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, p. xii. George junior became a captain in the local parliamentary forces, in June 1643 joining Sir Walter Erle* and William Sydenham* in their efforts to besiege the royalist-held Corfe Castle.27Bayley, Dorset, 84. He was the signatory of a begging letter to Portsmouth when Poole was hard-pressed by the victorious royalists in the following August.28Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 242. He was probably the ‘Captain Skutt’ who received 8 cannon for the defence of Poole and Brownsea Castle in September 1644.29Bayley, Dorset, 218. Skutt was a generous contributor to the war effort locally. As ‘Major Skutt’ he lent £300 to pay ‘the horse of the county’ in the following November, and was repaid this sum in January 1645.30Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, ff. 1r-v, 21r. The speed of this repayment suggests that Skutt was benefiting from his father’s influence in the county committee, and this no doubt also explains his decision to grant him the sequestered estates of the royalist George Carew at Hamworthy, near Poole, in 1646-8.31Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 79, 369-70. There is little doubt that his father also influenced Skutt’s election as recruiter MP for Poole in December 1645 to replace the borough’s recorder, the turncoat William Constantine.32C219/43/168.

Skutt’s election was followed by a local crisis at Poole, caused by a combination of war, plague, and famine. Such problems took up most of Skutt’s energies in the early months of 1646: he made trips to raise relief in Southampton and Portsmouth, and rode to London on town business in January and March.33Poole Borough Archives, MS 177 (A.18), unfol. In April he was present at the county quarter sessions.34Christie, Shaftesbury, i. appx i. p. xxxiv. In the closing months of 1646 Skutt was involved in supplying wheat, barley and malt to the borough, probably as poor relief.35Poole Borough Archives, MS 165 (A.4), unfol. Burdened with local duties, Skutt’s activity at Westminster was correspondingly slight, and his only mention in the Journals is in February 1647, when he was excused attendance at the House so that he might return to Dorset.36CJ v. 82b. The following month Skutt’s brother, William, was nominated as the new governor of Poole by the Commons, as part of Parliament’s attempt to assert its authority over the New Model; after the army’s occupation of London, he was replaced by a regular soldier, Lieutenant-colonel John Rede.37CJ v. 111b; Poole Borough Archives, MS 165 (A4), unfol.; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 13; H. Reece, The Army in Cromwellian England (Oxford, 2013), 129; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 563. In the meantime, although he did not involve himself in parliamentary business, George Skutt made occasional trips to London: in the late summer of 1647 and the new year of 1648 he signed orders of the Committee of Navy and Customs, although his membership of this body was never recorded in the Journal, and in July 1648 he signed a warrant of the Committee of the West.38SP16/512, ff. 71, 83; SP16/518, ff. 4, 6, 15, 19, 20; Dorset RO, DC/LR/D2/1, unfol. Skutt lost his military position when his regiment was reduced in April 1648, but he was named to the militia commission for Dorset appointed in December.39Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 377; A. and O. In the same month, Skutt was secluded from the Commons at Pride’s Purge, presumably because of his family’s Presbyterian sympathies and his long absence from the House.40A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 28 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

During the 1650s, Skutt continued to be an important figure in Poole affairs, and with his brother, William, took over many of the corporate and county functions of their ageing father. He was appointed as assessment commissioner for the town from April 1649.41A. and O. In September 1650 the brothers acted as trustees when the rectory of Poole was purchased by the corporation.42Hutchins, Dorset, i. 51. In March 1651 George Skutt and other burgesses of Poole petitioned the council of state in an attempt to remove Lieutenant-colonel Rede as their military governor, complaining that he had made ‘the garrison the city and centre of refuge to exorbitant Levellers and Ranters’ and had tried to impose a Baptist lecturer ‘in opposition to the orthodox divines and well-affected ministers as were provided by the magistracy of Poole’.43Clarke Pprs. v. 23-6; Bayley, Dorset, 343-5. In response the council of state – perhaps influenced by Denis Bond* – sacked Rede, and in April issued orders to appoint George Skutt in his place. On hearing the news, Skutt immediately went to Rede’s house and asked him to step down, but Rede refused as no formal commission had yet been issued.44Bayley, Dorset, 346. Rede then went to London to object in person, and the council referred the dispute to the major-general of the south west, John Disbrowe*.45CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 149, 165, 171, 173, 211. Disbrowe’s compromise was not a happy one: Skutt was to be governor of Poole and Brownsea with Rede as the captain of the garrison. Rede’s refusal to comply led to a re-think, and Disbrowe instead sent Lieutenant-colonel Joseph Hunkins to Poole as governor in June.46Clarke Pprs. v. 39-41; Bayley, Dorset, 345-7; Reece, Army in Cromwellian England, 131-2.

Although Skutt only held the governorship for a matter of weeks, the council of state ordered that he should be paid for his services in December 1651, and in May 1652 gave him permission to transport wheat and malt to the army in Ireland.47CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 74, 562. Skutt was elected as mayor of Poole in the autumn of 1652, and in the following December he was working with the council of state in organizing the impressment of sailors for the navy.48CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 53, 507. In June he sent a report to London of a ‘strange and wonderful shower’ of blood-red rain which fell on Poole, adding ominously ‘what it doth portend to this poor nation or place, the Lord alone knows’.49Merc. Politicus 159 (23-30 June 1653), 2548. A few weeks later, when the defences of Poole were demolished, Skutt was granted a commission as captain of Brownsea Castle, with a garrison of 12 men.50CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 110-1.

George Skutt senior died in 1654, leaving much of his estate and business interests to his two sons.51PROB11/235/98. George junior remained as captain of Brownsea, and was ordered by Disbrowe to interrogate suspects arriving at Poole from the continent in June 1655 and January 1656.52CSP Dom. 1655, p. 219; 1655-6, p. 104. He was named to local commissions for scandalous ministers in August 1654, gaol delivery in February 1655, militia in March 1655 and assessments in June 1657.53A. and O.; SP25/76A, f. 14; C181/6, p. 95. He was involved in public building works in Poole in May 1654, signed the borough’s election indenture in October of the same year, and audited the mayoral accounts in July 1656.54C219/44, unfol.; Poole Borough Archives, MS 48, unfol. In the winter of 1658-9 Skutt travelled to London, where he conducted business on behalf of the town and acquired for himself an order from the protectoral council for £2,000, possibly money owed to his father.55Poole Borough Archives, MS 29 (7), pp. 40-1; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 263. He continued to command at Brownsea under the restored Rump, and William Sydenham recommended him for further promotion when the army was reformed in June, although this was not acted upon.56CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 378. In July Skutt received orders from the council of state in July 1659 to put Poole into a state of defence, and in the same month he was authorized to raise a company of foot in the town.57CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 43, 52, 96, 119.

Skutt’s public career came to an end at the Restoration. There were rumours in the summer of 1662 of his involvement in plots against the crown, and he was removed from the corporation when it was purged in the following October.58CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 441; Sydenham, Poole, 197-8. He died in the winter of 1670-1 and was buried in the parish church at Poole on 3 January 1671. Two of his children, born in 1656 and 1658, died as infants, and it is not known whether he had any surviving progeny.59Dorset RO, Poole par. reg.