DUNNE, Thomas (bef. 1636-aft. 1658), of Great Yarmouth, Norf. and London

Almost everything about Dunne’s background is uncertain. The surname was a common one in Great Yarmouth in this period and there were at least two men called Thomas Dunne who were contemporaries. This one probably first appears in the records in 1636, when, as an apprentice of William Grey, he was admitted as a freeman of Great Yarmouth.9Cal. of the Freemen of Great Yarmouth, 69. Four years later he was described as being in the employment of the town’s recorder, Miles Corbett*.10Norf. RO, Y/C 19/6, f. 454v. One other piece of evidence confirms that association with Corbett. The titlepage of a spoof speech purportedly given by Corbett in the Commons and printed in 1647 would claim that it had been recorded in shorthand ‘by Nockey and Tom Dunne his clerks’.11A Most Learned and Eloquent Speech [1647], E.298.3. By the late 1640s a Thomas Dunne of Great Yarmouth was serving as a ship’s captain.12CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 292; 1650, p. 572; 1651-2, p. 578. This was probably the son of Christopher Dunne, mariner, who was admitted as a Great Yarmouth freeman in 1647.13Cal. of the Freemen of Great Yarmouth, 78; Norf. RO, Norwich archdeaconry ct. will 1662-3, f. 326. Although the two men were almost certainly related, this was probably not the MP.

The man who probably was the future MP next appears in the Great Yarmouth records in July 1647 when the corporation appointed him to a committee to apportion the monthly assessment within the town.14Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 102v. Elected as a common councilman in August 1649, he could not immediately take up that position as he was then absent in London but he was able to be admitted on his return several weeks later.15Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 149, 152. Almost immediately he was also appointed as an assistant to the bailiffs for that year, one of whom was William Burton*.16Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 155v. During the summer of 1650 he travelled to London to buy fee farm rents on behalf of the corporation.17Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 170.

In October 1650 Dunne was admitted as a member of the town’s Independent congregation under William Bridge and he would be elected as one of its elders in January 1652.18Browne, Hist. of Congregationalism, 232 This influenced his civic activities, because he aligned himself on the corporation with other members of Bridge’s congregation, especially on specifically religious issues, as in June 1651 when he joined with William Burton in opposing the corporation’s draft bill for the maintenance of the rival local minister.19Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 205, 205v. In March 1652, following the resignations of several aldermen, the council of state sent a list of suggested replacements to the corporation. The seven names on that list included Dunne.20CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 168. The corporation followed the council’s advice and so promoted Dunne to the aldermanic bench. They also entrusted the borough assembly book into his care.21Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 214, 214v. Other civic responsibilities soon followed. In January 1653 he was among those appointed to review the town’s charters, the following April he was included on the committee to audit the corporation accounts, while in August 1653 he was sent to ask George Monck* that the town’s fishermen be exempt from naval impressment.22Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 228, 230v, 237.

In 1653, following the dissolution of the Rump, the gathered churches of Norfolk wrote to Oliver Cromwell* welcoming this news. Dunne, together with Samuel Shipeham, signed that address on behalf of the Great Yarmouth congregation.23J. Nickolls, Original Lttrs. and Pprs. of State (1743), 127. In early 1654 he sat on the corporation’s committees to set a rate for the repair of the parish church and to consider whether they should continue to supply bread and wine for its communion services.24Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 240, 241v. That June he was among those who travelled to London to inform Henry Cromwell* of his appointment as high steward of the town.25Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 245.

Dunne was elected to the first protectorate Parliament on 6 July 1654 with the regicide William Goffe* on the corporation interest, but the pair were involved in a double return which was resolved in their favour on 21 September.26Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 246v; CSP Dom. 1654, 284-5; CJ vii. 369a-b, 371a. Dunne’s only committee appointment, on 12 October, concerned the supply of whale oil and the regulation of the whaling trade.27CJ vii. 375b. After the dissolution on 22 January 1655, Dunne and Goffe wrote to the corporation informing them of this development, with Dunne taking that opportunity to ask them whether there was any business he could undertake in the capital on their behalf before returning home.28Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, f. 254v. The corporation wrote back to thank Dunne and later they authorised the payment to him of 6s 4d per day in wages for his time in Parliament.29Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 254v, 258v.

The appointment of the major-generals in the autumn of 1655 was ostensibly about overhauling the county militias as a safeguard against royalist plotting. A crucial element in the scheme was that the movements of royalists were to be monitored. Any royalists travelling to the capital were to be required to register their presence there.30S. Roberts, ‘Local government reform in England and Wales’, in ‘Into Another Mould’, ed. I. Roots (Exeter, 1981), 63-4; C. Durston, Cromwell’s Major-generals (Manchester, 2001), 133-4. In October 1655 the council of state appointed Dunne as the ‘register’ to administer that process.31CSP Dom. 1655, p. 389; 1655-6, p. 75; TSP iv. 302. One possibility might be that he had been recommended by Goffe, now the major-general for Berkshire, Hampshire and Sussex. Dunne was also appointed to the council’s trade committee.32CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 1. His salary as register was £300 per annum, later increased to £400.33CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 76; 1656-7, p. 131, 141, 366. By January 1656 he had established an office in the City close to the Old Exchange, although he soon moved to new premises in Fleet Street.34Add. 19516, ff. 2, 36; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 129, 277; Durston, Cromwell’s Major-generals, 134. Lists of royalists were compiled locally for each county and then sent to Dunne.35Add. 34011-13. Separate records were kept of those royalists living in London or of those who travelled to the capital.36Add. 34014; Add. 34016. Dunne also employed officials in the major ports, such as Dover, Gravesend, Deal and Rye, to check on those entering the country.37Add. 19516, ff. 36, 41-41v, 89, 92; Add. 34015. The result was probably the most thorough system of government surveillance yet created in England. Significantly, the only major plot during the period when the office was operational was a Leveller one (the ‘Sindercombe plot’). Dunne’s work for the register office may be why he seems not to have been considered for re-election as the MP for Great Yarmouth in August 1656.

Dunne was elected as the joint bailiff of Great Yarmouth for the coming year in late August 1657, but he refused to serve, alleging that he had engaged himself in London ‘where his residence is in affairs of great importance and is necessitated to stay and remain there upon weighty employment of his own’.38Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 293, 295. That may not have been entirely true. The experiment of the major-generals had been abandoned earlier that year. Earlier that month the council of state had paid off Dunne and ordered him to close the register office.39CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 66, 117; TSP vii. 265. The Great Yarmouth corporation now fined him £40 for rejecting this appointment as bailiff.40Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 295v, 304v. A year later, in August 1658, Dunne informed them that he had now settled permanently in London and so asked to resign as an alderman. The corporation accepted his resignation and reduced his fine to £20.41Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 309v, 310. At the same time he was dismissed from the Great Yarmouth church to worship with Philip Nye’s congregation at St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange in London.42DWL, Gt. Yarmouth church recs. 101. Nothing further is known about him. A namesake, quite possibly the mariner, was appointed a Great Yarmouth alderman under the new charter granted in 1663.43Norf. RO, Y/C 19/8, f. 10. Either of them could have been the ‘Mr Thomas Dunne’ who defaulted on his contributions for the Norfolk militia in 1666.44Norf. Lieut. Jnl. 98. The 1663 alderman, who had served as bailiff of Great Yarmouth in 1668, died in 1672.45Norf. RO, Norwich archdeaconry ct. will 1672-3, no. 99.