It is difficult to disentangle the careers of the several John Langleys who were active in this period. The 1653 Member, however, appears to have been descended from the Langleys of Shropshire, a branch of which settled in London in the late sixteenth century.19Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 422-3. His father, also John Langley, was a citizen and Fishmonger who had married into an Essex family and lived in the parish of St Peter, Cornhill.20Soc. Gen., Boyd’s Inhabitants 6121. Langley followed his father into the Fishmongers’ Company, obtaining his freedom by patrimony in February 1640, and climbing the ranks to become master of his company in June 1652.21GL, MS 5570/3, pp. 628, 634, 53; MS 5576/1, pp. 212, 338; MS 5587/1, ff. 212, 634. His main business interests were, however, in overseas trade. He married the daughter of Richard Middleton, a prominent merchant, in September 1640, and became a freeman of the East India Company two months later.22Beaven, Aldermen ii. 71; Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, p. 114. His inheritance from his parents, which included lands in Essex, gave him the necessary capital, and he was soon working in partnership with his father-in-law.23Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1640-3, pp. 225, 238-9, 308. During the first civil war, Langley sided with Parliament. His first public appointment, in February 1644, was as a member of the Committee of Accounts.24Supra, ‘Committee of Accounts’; A. and O.; CJ iii. 408b. In the following September he was one of those citizens responsible for paying £3,000 to the parliamentary troops under Sir Thomas Myddelton* (his wife’s cousin), campaigning in north Wales.25A. and O. By this time Langley was serving as court assistant to the Levant Company, which had a reputation for radicalism.26Beaven, Aldermen ii. 73. In April 1645 Langley joined Isaac Penington* in opposing the appointment of William Bull as preacher to the Levant Company because he lacked the necessary Puritan credentials.27Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 377. In September 1647 Langley was among those added to the militia committee when it was purged of Presbyterians following the ‘forcing of the Houses’.28J.E. Farnell, ‘The Politics of the City of London, 1649-57’ (Chicago Univ. PhD thesis, 1963), 92-3. There was a limit to Langley’s involvement in City politics, however, and during the later 1640s he concentrated instead on his mercantile interests, particularly in the East India and Levant Companies.29Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, p. 186.
In January 1649 Langley was appointed to the Rump Parliament’s special commission to ensure a more efficient organisation of the navy and customs.30A. and O. He was an infrequent attender, although he and Samuel Moyer* did request a loan from the East India Company to enable the commission to prepare the spring fleet in January 1649.31Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1644-9, p. 312. In April he was made a commissioner for the sale of prize goods.32A. and O. It seems that Langley shared Moyer’s sympathy with the Levellers, as in the new year he was named in the Agreement of the People as a suitable member of a commission to supervise the establishment of a new constitution.33Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 539; Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan Revolution ed. D.M. Wolfe (New York, 1944), 344. This radical streak did not damage his reputation within the City. Langley was appointed as a London assessment commissioner in April and re-appointed in December.34A. and O. On 11 December he was elected an alderman for Langbourn Ward. Sworn on 3 January 1650, Langley appears to have been an unwilling public official and he paid a fine to be released from his duties in June, preferring to focus on his business interests.35Beaven, Aldermen ii. 73; Farnell, thesis, 92-3. In January 1650 he and his associates, including Moyer, had claimed to have lost £60,000 at the hands of the French, who had seized their ship, and he was granted prize goods in recompense by the council of state.36CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 564. Later in the year their privateer took part in the capture of a French man-of-war, which was then claimed as a prize.37CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 295, 307, 312. Other prize claims followed.38CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 37 In July 1650 Langley was elected to the committee of the East India Company.39Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1650-4, p. 50. In March 1650 he was appointed to the third high court of justice, alongside other London radicals including Moyer.40A. and O. Langley was an active member of the powerful commissioners for the admiralty and navy, comprising MPs and non-MPs, set up after the commonwealth’s initial defeat in the opening phase of the first Dutch War: in December 1652, it took over responsibility for naval policy and administration.41CJ vii. 228a; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 14, 350, Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 630. He also advised the council of state on the care of wounded sailors in February 1653 and co-ordinated efforts for the redemption of English captives at Sallee on the Barbary Coast in May.42CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 179, 342-3. In the same year Langley’s financial position was strengthened still further by an inheritance of money and lands in Wales from his father-in-law, Richard Middleton.43PROB11/229/659.
In 1653 Langley was summoned to the Nominated Assembly as a representative for London, but he played very little part in its proceedings, and may have been a reluctant candidate.44Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 125, 127, 232. At the recommendation of the council of state, on 14 July he was confirmed in his post as navy commissioner, but on 3 December he was rejected as a candidate for the new admiralty commission.45CJ vii. 285a, 362a; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 19; A. and O. After the closure of the Assembly a published list of those Members who favoured ‘the godly learned ministry and universities’ included Langley.46Tai Lui, Discord in Zion (The Hague, 1973), 168. Langley remained aloof from the protectoral regime, and his only public appointment was to the commission for ejecting scandalous ministers in August 1654.47A. and O. He continued to be a stalwart of the East India Company during this period, and joined Moyer and others in providing security for pepper and indigo imports in August 1657 and February 1658 respectively.48Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1655-9, pp. 105, 160, 227. With the fall of the protectorate in the spring of 1659, Langley briefly reappeared on the political scene. He was reappointed as an admiralty commissioner by the restored Rump in May, and was named as a militia commissioner for London in July.49A. and O.; CJ vii. 666b; Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 55 (E.1923.2).
Langley was not penalised after the Restoration. A complaint that he and his partners owed almost £5,000 in customs duty in 1661 prompted an investigation into the money he had received for the redemption of captives, but no further action was taken against him.50CTB i. 143; CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 170, 269. Langley was a frequent correspondent of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, who attempted to revitalise the Levant trade in the mid-1660s.51HMC Finch i. 412, 435-6. Langley’s second son, Richard, became a factor at Smyrna on account of ‘his father’s greatness and interest in the [Levant] Company’ and was later knighted by Charles II.52HMC Finch i. 113, 169-70, 412. Langley remained in contact with some of his old associates, including the imprisoned Moyer, who transferred £750 of his East India stock to Langley in January 1666.53Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1664-7, pp. 190-1. He was in London during the plague and fire, which he regarded as ‘the hand of God upon this City’.54HMC Finch i. 412. During 1669 he disposed of his East India interest to develop his interests in the Levant trade.55Cal. Ct. Mins. E.I. Co. 1668-70, p. 160. He was appointed deputy governor of the Levant Company in 1671.56Beaven, Aldermen ii. 73.
Langley was still a wealthy man at his death in 1692. In his will he left lands in Wales and Jamaica and substantial sums of money to be divided between his four surviving children. He requested that he should be buried ‘avoiding all ostentation’, with no more than 30 people present.57PROB11/411/117. His daughter Elizabeth later married Sir Hans Sloane, the physician and president of the Royal Society.58Beaven, Aldermen, 183.