WITHRING, Thomas (c.1596-1651), of Sherborne Lane, St Mary Abchurch, London.

Withring was descended from a Staffordshire family of yeoman or ‘parish gentry’ status. His father died in 1618 with debts of £369 and a personal estate that was valued at £286.18Staffs. RO, Wills and Prob. in Consistory Ct. of Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Inventory of Thos. Witherings, 24 Nov. 1618. Despite their relatively humble rank, the Witherings apparently had connections at Whitehall, for Withring’s uncle was a yeoman usher at court and his elder brother a gentleman sewer and master of the royal game of swans.19Vis. London, 340; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 459; The Orders Lawes and Ancient Customes of Swanns. Caused to be Printed by John Witherings Esquire (1632). Withring, a second son, was apprenticed to a London haberdasher and purchased his freedom of the Mercers’ Company of London in 1626.20LMA, CLC/L/HA/C/011/MS15860/004, f. 119; Mercers’ Co. Archives, Acts of Ct. 1595-1629, ff. 284, 289. He seems to have remained in the London cloth trade until at least September 1630; but at some point in the early 1630s, he followed his brother and uncle into court service, securing the office of Queen Henrietta Maria’s harbinger – that is, he arranged quarters and entertainment for the queen and her servants when the court was in transit.21Coventry Archives, PA/14/15/2; CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 123; HMC Cowper, ii. 20.

It was probably through his duties as a harbinger, which would have involved conveying dispatches to and from the queen’s entourage, that Withring acquired his expertise as a postmaster.22C.R. Clear, ‘Thomas Witherings and the birth of the postal service’, Post Office Green Pprs. xv. 4. Of course, if he had been involved in exporting or importing goods as a mercer then he would already have been familiar with the workings of the mail system, such as it was. Convinced that he could improve the postal service, Withring and one William Frizzell, a client of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, purchased a controlling interest in the office of postmaster for foreign parts from Matthew De Quester, who was retiring from active duty.23CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 384. Their patent as De Quester’s deputies was issued on 15 March 1632, with Arundel putting up £1,000 as capital. Withring quickly bought out Frizzell and, with the enthusiastic backing of the secretary of state, Sir John Coke†, set about a complete overhaul of the foreign postal service.24CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. 48; 1635-6, p. 32; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 152-3.

The package of reforms introduced by Withring – but possibly thought up by Coke or the London merchant and royal financier Philip Burlemachi – was designed to transform the carriage of overseas mail from the ramshackle, ad hoc arrangements that had existed hitherto into an efficient, professional and fully state-authorized service of the kind that operated on the continent.25Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 153-5; H. Robinson, The British Post Office (Princeton, 1948), 32-3. It is a measure of Withring’s success in this task that in 1635 the privy council allowed him to introduce a similar scheme (probably of his own devising) for conveying official and private letters in mainland Britain.26CSP Dom. 1635, p. 299; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 155. But in taking on this additional responsibility, for which he borrowed £1,500 by statute staple in 1635, he seems to have over-stretched himself.27LC4/201, f. 243v. From 1635, complaints mounted from merchants and noblemen that his service was inefficient and too expensive. In addition, he was the object of a barrage of complaints from the local postmasters that had either been displaced or seen their remunerations slashed by his reforms.28CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 51-3, 143, 177, 183, 216; 1638-9, pp. 199-200; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, 132, 173, 178, 200; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 155-6.

To some extent, however, Withring was a victim of his own success. His most vociferous critics were those eager to reap some of the profits that the reformed postal service was evidently netting him. It was greed or envy that provoked his former partner Frizzell to denounce him as a ‘home-bred shopkeeper without languages’; while Secretary Francis Windebanke* expressed outrage that a ‘broken mercer’ could amass an estate worth at least £800 a year by exploiting the king’s bounty.29SP16/375/20, f. 43v; Bodl. Bankes 5/2, f. 137; 51/2, f. 88; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 51; 1625-49, p. 489. Withring’s only firm friend was Secretary Coke.30CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 71; 1634-5, p. 38; 1635-6, p. 32; 1640-1, p. 536; HMC Cowper, ii. 6, 18, 119; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, 213. It was probably Coke who strong-armed Charles Lord Stanhope, the postmaster for official inland dispatches, into surrendering his patent in 1637 and who then persuaded the privy council to appoint Withring deputy postmaster of inland post under the two secretaries of state.31CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 255; Clear, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 8; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 157-8. This arrangement seems, in the short term at least, to have weakened Windebanke’s resolve to replace Withring with his own man, Burlemachi – especially since Withring paid both secretaries a fee, rumoured to be £1,500 a year, ‘for the supporting and securing the said monopoly patent’.32The Humble Remonstrance of the Grievances of all His Majesties Posts of England (1640).

Withring was a court candidate in the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640. He stood initially for the Kentish borough of New Romney – probably with the backing of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Theophilus Howard†, 1st earl of Suffolk – but received no votes when the contest went to a poll on 12 March.33Supra, ‘New Romney’. Four days later (16 Mar.), he was returned for the Northumberland constituency of Morpeth.34Supra, ‘Morpeth’. He was quite obviously a carpetbagger, having no known connection with the borough’s main electoral patron, Lord William Howard of Naworth. As secretary of state, Coke might have had sufficient influence to sway either Howard or the borough’s voters, but he had resigned from office a month before the election. The best clue as to Withring’s likely patron is the identity of his fellow member for Morpeth, Sir Philip Mainwaring. Mainwaring was the earl of Strafford’s (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) secretary and was almost certainly still in Ireland when he was elected.35Supra, ‘Sir Philip Mainwaring’. Strafford had several of his supporters returned for Yorkshire constituencies that spring and was to secure a place for one of his friends at Berwick in the autumn.36Supra, ‘Yorkshire’; ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’. Mainwaring was clearly Strafford’s nominee, and it seems very probable that the lord lieutenant also exerted himself on Withring’s behalf – either as a favour to Coke, or simply because he was eager to impose another friend of the court upon an amenable borough. The only question is whether he approached the Morpeth voters directly or through his court ally, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland. In the event, Withring received no appointments in the Short Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate.

Withring’s tenure as postmaster did not long survive Coke’s resignation. In July 1640, Windebanke and Coke’s replacement, Sir Henry Vane I*, succeeded in having him sequestered from office for a variety of (probably trumped up) misdemeanours and installing Burlemachi in his place.37Bodl. Bankes 5/2, ff. 136-7; 51/2, ff. 86, 88; Hunts. RO, Acc. 2091, no. 497; HMC Fifth Rep. 47; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 340; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 158-9. In addition, the king ordered that a charge be exhibited against Withring in the court of star chamber.38Bodl. Bankes 5/2, f. 136. With the opening of the Long Parliament, a group of London merchants petitioned the Houses and the king on his behalf, but his many enemies among the local postmasters hit back with a petition of their own to the Commons, accusing him of fraud and extortion to the tune of over £10,000.39Bodl. Bankes 5/2, f. 137; Remonstrance…of all His Majesties Posts; HMC Cowper, ii. 262. The petitions were referred to a sub-committee of the committee for grievances, which resolved in February 1641 that his sequestration from office was illegal and that he ought to be restored.40HMC Cowper, ii. 269; CJ ii. 81b-82a; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 453; 1641-3, p. 223; Verney, Notes, 24-7. However, it was to be more than a year before the House received the committee’s recommendations and voted accordingly, and in the interim Withring’s enemies, led by Vane I, subjected him to ‘violent persecutions’.41CJ ii. 500b; HMC Cowper, ii. 269, 275; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 159. In desperation, he assigned his interest in the postmastership to the parliamentarian grandee Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, on 15 February 1641, claiming for himself the post of deputy postmaster and a hefty slice of the profits.42HMC Cowper, ii. 275; LJ viii. 588b; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 159. Warwick was one of the most influential figures at Westminster during the 1640s, but even he struggled to defend his and Withring’s interest against a growing list of rival claimants, which included not only Vane I but also the even more formidable figure of Edmund Prideaux I*.43Hunts. RO, Acc. 2091, no. 497; HMC 5th Rep. 52, 62; HMC 8th Rep. ii. 58; LJ v. 459a, 474b; PJ ii. 72, 95-6; Aylmer, State’s Servants, 19-20. It was following a report by Prideaux from the committee for postmasters on 16 August 1642 that the House declared Withring, Coke and Windebanke delinquents for the unlawful imprisonment of several letter-carriers during the personal rule of Charles I.44CJ ii. 722b. No action was taken against Withring, however, and on 3 August 1643 he was granted a pass by the Lords to go to the king’s headquarters at Oxford.45LJ vi. 163b. But it was Prideaux who ran the inland letter office from late 1642, and his position as de facto postmaster-general was formally recognised by the Commons in September 1644.46Supra, ‘Edmund Prideaux I’; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 24 (5-12 Sept. 1648), sigs. H2-H2v (E.462.34).

Apart from Withring’s visit to Oxford in 1643 – the purpose of which is unknown – there is no evidence that he was active in the royalist cause during the 1640s. Indeed, he later claimed that he had been ‘very serviceable to Parliament’, contributing £1,000 to the war-effort in Ireland.47CCC 2208. Nevertheless, his sojourn to Oxford lent substance to allegations by his numerous enemies that he was ‘very familiar with delinquents, stands bound for them, conceals their letters and conveys letters and intelligence to them beyond seas’.48CCAM 1052-3. More damningly, he was accused of having assisted the royalist insurgents in Essex in 1648 with horse and arms.49SP23/131, pp. 439-61; CCAM 1052-3. Like the malicious reports put about by his enemies before the war that he was a crypto-papist, none of these allegations withstood close scrutiny, and he was cleared by the committees for Compounding* and Advance of Money*.50CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 123; 1625-49, p. 489; CCC 2207-8; CCAM 1052-3. His cause was not helped by his own haughty and irascible nature, which antagonized even his friends.51HMC Cowper, ii. 333; Sharpe, ‘Thomas Witherings’, 159. Even so, he was sufficiently well thought of in London (where he owned a house in St Mary Abchurch) to be elected an alderman in September 1649, only to have his return declared void on a technicality.52Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 39, 317.

The strain of over 15 years trying to run the nation’s post, or keep others from running it, took its toll of his health, and in November 1649 he was ‘upon a sudden ... taken with a sickness in the head, and being thereupon very ill disposed in body’ he decided to make his will.53PROB11/219, f. 393. Despite the setbacks he had suffered since 1640, he was able to make bequests totalling £2,000 and to charge his estate with annuities worth £640 a year. It is clear from his will that he still regarded himself, under Warwick, as the rightful postmaster of the inland mail, bequeathing the office to Sir David Watkins and William Ellys* to hold in trust for his young son (Withring and Warwick replaced Watkins with the earl’s man-of-business William Jessop* in 1650).54PROB11/219, f. 393; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 159. Moreover, he continued to operate some form of overseas letter service and apparently numbered the council of state among his clients.55CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 142; 1650, p. 540. He also employed Jeremiah Copping* to manage his finances – personal as well as business.56Supra, ‘Jeremiah Copping’; C5/375/32. Yet Withring’s postal empire had evidently shrunk considerably since his days under Coke, for by 1651 there were no less than five claimants to the foreign and inland postmasterships.57CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 15.

Withring died of a stroke on his way to church on 28 September 1651 and was buried on 21 October in the chancel of St Andrew, Hornchurch, where he had purchased an estate in about 1646.58St Andrew, Hornchurch par. reg.; Hyde, Hist. of the Post, 211; VCH Essex, vii. 37. A memorial tablet was later set up in the church, pronouncing him ‘second to none for unfathomed policy, unparalleled sagacious and divining genius; witness his great correspondence in all parts of the Christian world’.59MI, St Andrew, Hornchurch. His religious sympathies are not known, although it is worth noting that his widow was, or became, a member of Thomas Goodwin’s Independent congregation in London.60PROB11/259, ff. 264v-265; ; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 622; Clear, ‘Thomas Witherings’. No other member of the family sat in Parliament.