EXTON, Edward (c.1588-1664), of St Lawrence’s, Southampton, Hants.

It is plausible that Exton, a man of substance from his youth, was descended from the mercantile family of that name who had sent Members to Parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.36HP Commons 1386-1421. He was the eldest son of John Exton, a Southampton merchant who held numerous civic offices, including that of mayor (1594).37Bk. of Remembrance ed. Gidden, 98-100. He himself was elected a burgess in 1611, when he was also recorded as a founder member of the Company of Merchants of London Trading into France.38Select Charters, ed. Carr, 66. In July that year James, apparently his younger brother, was apprenticed as ‘son of John Exton, merchant of Southampton deceased’ to a London clothworker, but both seem to have located their business principally in the south coast port.39Recs. of London’s Livery Cos. database; PROB11/153/703 (James Exton); PROB11/314/359. By 1618 Edward was listed as one of the Southampton’s leading merchants, a position built upon his trade in Newfoundland fish, and in Spanish and French wines; a deposition taken in April 1620, when his age was given as 32, suggests a triangular trade through Bordeaux.40Southampton RO, TC Box 1/52; SC5/1/50, p. 6; Southampton Assembly Bks. ed. Horrocks, iii. 61; Coldham, English Adventurers, 180-1. His concomitant wealth enabled him to hold a number of properties in the town, some of them leased from the corporation.41Southampton Assembly Bks. ed. Horrocks, iv. 14; Southampton RO, SC4/3/153, 175, 191, 201, 236; SC5/1/50, pp. 1, 4; Add. Ch. 17449.

Over five decades Exton held many civic offices in what was still (despite its decline from its medieval pre-eminence) among the major provincial ports of the kingdom. Sheriff of the county of Southampton in 1620, he served as mayor in 1623 and 1636.42Southampton Assembly Bks. ed. Horrocks, iii. 59; Southampton RO, SC5/3/17. In the 1620s he was in frequent contact with the town’s recorder, Henry Sherfield†, on both private and public affairs, including parliamentary elections.43Hants RO, 44M69/L35/5-13, 44M69/L48/20. Thereafter, he remained a prominent alderman, acting as overseer of the town’s workhouse and a justice of the peace.44Hants RO, 44M69/L35/16-27, 40-1, 49; Southampton RO, SC3/7/17-20, 30-38. He was involved in negotiations towards setting the rate for local customs as early as 1618, and more importantly worked for the corporation in their dealings with the salt patentees in 1638.45Southampton RO, TC Box 1/51, 54, 61. Meanwhile, he served the wider county as a commissioner for gaol delivery.46C181/4, ff. 23, 77v, 151, 202.

A strong tradition of returning resident burgesses or civic officials doubtless helped Exton to secure election to Parliament for Southampton in the autumn of 1640. Like many borough Members, he made little visible impression on Commons proceedings. During the first 18 months of the session he appeared in the Journal only on 17 December 1640, when he was granted leave owing to indisposition and his duties as executor to his sister, and on 17 May 1641, when he took the Protestation.47CJ ii. 52b, 148a. However, there are indications that he could be an attentive attender and that he was well known to several parliamentary diarists. On 2 March 1642 Exton related to Sir Simonds D’Ewes* while ‘at dinner’ proceedings relating to the king’s answer to one of Parliament’s messages concerning the militia.48PJ i. 496. Two days later he provided Roger Hill II* with details of a controversial speech by Sir Ralph Hopton*.49PJ i. 507. Exton also reported to Framlingham Gawdy* the decision to institute proceedings against Archbishop William Laud (23 Mar.), and gave D’Ewes details of a speech by John Pym* regarding Ireland (4 June).50PJ ii. 49, 76; iii. 22.

On 6 June 1642, following a motion from Somerset MP Robert Hunt*, Exton again obtained leave of absence from Westminster, this time because his wife was ‘lying very dangerous sick’.51CJ ii. 607b; PJ iii. 27. He may well have remained in Southampton for the next few months. While his kinsman Robert Exton, mayor of Chichester, was soon in trouble with Parliament for publishing the king’s commission of array (16 July) and was to become a royalist delinquent, in succeeding weeks Edward Exton and his colleague George Gollop appear to have implemented Parliament’s orders of 25-26 August for impounding and dispatching to London the valuable cargo of a ship diverted to Southampton from royalist south coast ports.52CJ ii. 677a, 736b-737a, 739a, 748b, 760a, 765a, 790a, 897a, 903b, 905b, 911b.

On 4 November John Button I*, who had been sent to Southampton privately by Commons leader John Pym*, reported that Exton and Gollop were ‘vigilant and faithful’ in the face of disaffection in the town, and recommended that they be added to the Hampshire committee.53HMC 10th Report VI, 91. But something soon occurred to alter perceptions at Westminster, for on 29 November they were ‘summoned forthwith to attend the service of the House, all excuses and delays set apart’, and on 2 December they were to be ‘brought up in safe custody’.54CJ ii. 869b, 872b. Shortly after, a declaration of loyalty from the corporation, apparently lodged by one of the MPs with the parliamentarian garrison at Portsmouth along with the town’s financial contribution to the cause, seems to have temporarily reassured Parliament, but suspicion erupted again in the New Year.55Woodward et al. General Hist. Hants, ii. 317; Davies, Hist. Southampton, 485; CJ ii. 915a, 976b. In March both MPs were named as sequestration commissioners for Hampshire, but when on 1 April the mayor and another Southampton alderman were called to the House to answer charges of delinquency, they were urgently summoned too.56CJ iii. 26a; A. and O. The orders were repeated on the 13th, and it was not until the 19th that the Commons was finally satisfied that their reasons for absence were acceptable and they were admitted to the chamber.57CJ iii. 42a, 52a. Like Gollop, Exton took the Covenant on 6 June, but the only other overt indication of his presence in the chamber that was on 23 September, when (also like Gollop) he was named to a committee regarding the garrisons of Gloucester.58CJ iii. 118a, 254a. His name seems to have eluded the clerk who entered after Gollop the names of Hampshire MPs deputed on 23 October to consider a petition from Southampton.59CJ iii. 289a.

Placed late in 1643 on the committee for the southern association, by January 1644 Exton and Gollop were being entrusted with funds from the excise for the upkeep of Hampshire garrisons, and on 9 May they were named to a committee charged with the reorganisation of local defence.60CJ iii. 361b-362a, 399a, 486a. At the end of September Exton was handling a consignment of powder for use in Southampton.61CJ iii. 634b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 11. Although both men were also added to a committee preparing an ordinance for west midlands commander Colonel John Foxe (6 June), their focus remained their own region, where they were active on the county committee.62CJ iii. 519a; Add. 24860, f. 145. They were still handling the administration of interest on the loan from Southampton in April 1646.63CJ iv. 527b. Meanwhile, they were among those placed on the first Presbyterian classis for Hampshire in November 1645.64King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 263.

Exton’s profile in the Commons Journal was otherwise characterised by successive grants of leave of absence (7 Jan., 24 July, 28 Dec. 1646; 12 May, 24 Aug. 1647; 30 May 1648) or a note that he was not present at a call of the House (9 Oct. 1647).65CJ iv. 398a, 626a; v. 30b, 168b, 282b, 330a, 578a. His only appointment during this period was to the committee nominated for Southampton on 11 August 1648.66CJ v. 667a. Yet this may mask greater activity behind the scenes. On 10 November 1648 he was a signatory to an order (subsequently published) of the Committee of Navy and Customs – of which he had been a member since at least the autumn of 1645.67At the Committee of Lords and Commons for the Navy and Customes (1648). Granted leave again to return to Hampshire on 1 December, he may not have been at Westminster during Pride’s Purge.68CJ vi. 92a.

There is no evidence of Exton’s attendance in the Commons during the Rump, although it is impossible to say this was because of forcible exclusion or voluntary withdrawal. That he was prepared in some respects to support the new regime, however, is indicated by his willingness to lend money (£40) to Parliament in July 1649 to assist in transporting soldiers to Ireland and in his continued nomination as an assessment commissioner.69Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 2; A. and O.; CJ vii. 10a. While he was not elected to further Parliaments, he was one of the prominent figures in Southampton who in 1655 corresponded with Oliver Cromwell* regarding both their organisation of extra security for the town in the aftermath of the rising at Salisbury, and their problems with troops from Portsmouth.70TSP iii. 273. In February 1656 he was among signatories to a letter to the admiralty commissioners regarding the impressment of men in Southampton to serve at Portsmouth.71CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 463. He does not appear in records of the returned Rump or Long Parliament in 1659 or 1660.

Exton’s service as a commissioner for corporations in 1662 indicates a considerable degree of support for the Restoration regime.72HMC 11th Rep. III, 55. In his will, drawn up in January 1663, he indicated that he had already made provision for Edward Exton, son of the late royalist mayor of Chichester, but named many other beneficiaries, indicating a wide circle of friends and kin. These included William Barnard, the vicar-elect of Holy Cross, and Roger Turner, the longstanding curate of Jesus Chapel, both in Southampton; friends Robert Mason of Sulham, Berkshire, and Richard Hunt of Southampton; his grandson Edward, son of the current mayor, Richard Richbell† (‘Rushbell’), and several others apparently the children of his deceased daughters; his third wife Frances and their daughter, also Frances, who was to receive £1,500 at the age of 18. Exton died in 1664 and was buried in the chancel of St Lawrence church.73PROB11/314/359; Clergy of the C of E database. In 1667 Exton’s widow was recorded as living in Hill, just outside Southampton, where he had purchased property from Richard Whithed II* the previous decade.74Southampton RO, SC4/3/255; Hants RO, 5M50/2022-3. His former son-in-law Robert Richbell had served as MP for the town in 1660, but none of Exton’s or Richbell’s descendents appear to have sat in Parliament.75HP Commons 1660-1690.