HIPPISLEY, Thomas (c.1613-aft. 1660), of Ston Easton, Som.

The identification of this MP is far from certain. The Hippisleys of Ston Easton were one of the major Somerset families in this period and the head of the family, John Hippisley, sheriff of Somerset in 1640, was among the county’s most prominent parliamentarians during the 1640s. It has been suggested that the 1654 MP was John’s first cousin, Thomas Hippisley junior (d.1671) of East Court, Cameley, Somerset.9S.W. Bates Harbin, MPs for the Co. of Som. (Taunton, 1939), 161; D. Underdown, Som. in the Civil War and Interregnum (Newton Abbot, 1973), 177; Som. Protestation Returns, 208; Cameley par. reg.; PROB11/338/33. Another possibility would be Thomas Hippisley (d. 1670) of Emborough.10PROB11/333/319.

It is, however, at least as likely that the MP was John’s younger brother. Their father, John senior, had died in 1613, when Thomas, the youngest of eight children, can have been no more than an infant.11Sales of Wards ed. Hawkins, 115; Vis. Som. 1623, 52. This Thomas studied law at Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the bar in 1644.12LI Admiss. i. 228; LI Black Bks. ii. 363. He took the Protestation along with three of his brothers at Binegar, the neighbouring parish to Ston Easton, in 1641.13Som. Protestation Returns, 122. That this Thomas Hippisley, as opposed to a namesake, served as a captain under Alexander Popham* is not at all clear.14BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database. More certain is that in June 1646 John Harington I* dined with John Hippisley at Ston Easton and discovered that Hippisley and his brother Thomas intended to join with John Pyne*, Henry Henley* and John Preston* in refusing to serve as justices of the peace in protest over Parliament’s handling of the Ilchester recruiter election.15Harington’s Diary, 27.

Although there is no evidence that any of the Thomas Hippisleys served on the commission of the peace at this date, Harington’s information suggests that Thomas of Ston Easton is the most likely to have served on the Somerset assessment commissions from 1643 onwards.16A. and O. That assessment commissioner is, in turn, the person who seems most likely to have become the MP. A similar argument applies to the man appointed as an elder for the Bath and Wrington Presbyterian classis. He was described as ‘Thomas Hippesley of Camerton’.17Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 415. This detail is, however, less useful than might be wished as Camerton was close to and equidistant from both Ston Easton and Cameley. Someone who had been active in Somerset local politics as a keen parliamentarian since the outbreak of the civil war is just the sort of person who might well have become an MP.

It does not help that so little is known about his career at Westminster. All that can be said is that he was among 11 men elected for the Somerset county seats in the poll on 12 July 1654. Unhelpfully, the (badly damaged) election indenture merely describes him as ‘Thomas Hippesley’.18C219/44, pt. 2. He then left no trace at all in the records of this Parliament. Two years later he sought re-election. But in the Somerset poll for the 1656 Parliament, held at Wells on 20 August 1656, he received only 717 votes and so came in thirteenth place.19Som. Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 77.

The political career of the county officeholder seems to have been terminated by the Restoration. One Thomas Hippisley, however, helped compile the probate inventory of John Locke of Pensford, the father of the philosopher, in February 1661.20Som. Wills II, ed. O.M. Moger and A.J. Webbe (Som. Rec. Soc. xciv), 231. The date of death of Thomas Hippisley of Ston Easton is not known.