JACOB, Sir John (1597-1666), of Gamlingay, Cambs., Billiter Lane, London and Bromley St Leonard, Mdx.

Jacob came from Cambridgeshire yeoman stock. His father, who leased land at Gamlingay from Merton College, Oxford, became a prominent London merchant and a member of the customs syndicate led by Maurice Abbot†.31VCH Cambs. v. 76. John Jacob was educated at Merton, and after graduating in 1617 he quickly obtained a three year pass to travel on the continent.32Al. Ox.; APC 1616-17, p. 340. By 1620 he had become secretary to Sir Isaac Wake†, a former fellow of Merton and the English ambassador at the court of the duke of Savoy in Turin. The post involved extensive travel throughout Europe, including to the court of James I.33SO3/7, unfol.; CSP Ven. 1619-21, pp. 238, 240, 246, 250, 265, 276, 278, 332, 343, 344-5, 359-60, 566, 576, 602; 1621-3, p. 9; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 159; Fortescue Pprs. ed. Gardiner, 150; Eg. 2594, ff. 60-62.

By December 1621 Wake had secured for him a secretarial position with the lord treasurer, the earl of Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield†). Sir Isaac assured the earl that ‘although he be very young in years, yet he is old in understanding’; he had learning, linguistic skills, grasp of ‘the affairs of the world’ and, ‘which is worth all the rest’, was ‘habituated in virtue and goodness ... and not corrupted with passion’.34Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/OE755. The previous year Jacob had joined his father (who was already a farmer of the great customs) as a collector of the customs on tobacco, and in April 1623 the pair became joint collectors of pretermitted customs in London on woollen cloth.35CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 27, 82, 91, 175, 179; SO3/7, unfol. These offices involved working closely with the crown and the lord treasurer.36Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/CP142; U269/1/Hi161; U269/1/Oec36. In December 1623 Jacob was licensed with others to enclose 400 acres of Middlesex’s land in Copthall Park, Essex.37CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 135; SO3/7, unfol.

The lord treasurer’s influence may have been responsible for Jacob’s election to Parliament for Plympton Erle in 1624. He was named to only one committee during the session (on a bill to prevent extortion by customs officials).38HP Commons 1604-1629. His participation was probably curtailed by the impeachment proceedings against Middlesex, during which both Jacob and his father were called upon to give evidence on this very subject (the latter giving conflicting statements).39Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/OI43, pp. 2, 7-8; State Trials ii. 1192-3. Jacob survived a motion to remove him from the House, but was effectively neutralized.40CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 212, 224; Harl. 6383, ff. 124v-125; M. Prestwich, Politics and Profit under the Early Stuarts (1966), 458-61; Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/OE983. Following the removal of Middlesex from the treasurership, Jacob retained contact with his former employer. In May 1629, shortly before his father’s death, he wrote to the earl to express his willingness to give future service, but refused to obtain from his father an admission of perjury during the trial, saying that to have troubled him would have been ‘if not impious, I am sure unnatural in me’.41Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/1/CB118.

Despite Middlesex’s downfall, Jacob and his father were confirmed in their customs posts.42C66/2307/2; CKS, U269/1/OI40; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 443; APC Col. 1613-80, p. 123. Jacob appears not to have stood again in elections for Parliament, but in June 1627 he was sworn clerk of the privy council extraordinary, while his father was highly regarded at court as one who ‘doth know the quintessence of the exchequer’.43APC 1627, p. 342; Add. 33935, f. 177. In June 1629 Jacob was made a member of the East India Company by patrimony and he soon succeeded to his father’s offices, becoming, like the other farmers, a crown financier.44CSP Col. 1625-9, p. 698; PSO5/5, unfol.; SO3/9, unfol.; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 394; 1629-31, p. 177; 1633-4, pp. 208, 448, 451, 534, 537; 1635, pp. 114, 339; 1625-49, p. 561; Ashton, Crown and Money Markets, 95. In February 1631 the king granted them the general customs for one year at a rent of £150,000.45CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 512, 518; Add. 40015, f. 34. Jacob also advised the privy council on trade, customs, and tobacco, and examined the accounts of the City of London.46APC 1630-1, p. 179; CSP Col. 1574-1660, p. 274; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 241; 1641-3, p. 227. Knighted in May 1633, he became a well-known figure.47CB. He was targeted both by those who sought patronage, like Donald Lupton, translator of the History of the Moderne Protestant Divines, and by London’s criminal element, who recognised his wealth.48Jacobus Verheiden, The History of the Moderne Protestant Divines (1637), sig. A4; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 401. When the customs syndicate was reconstituted in 1637, Jacob surrendered his interest in tobacco, but retained his other roles.49Ashton, Crown and Money Markets, 102; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 253; 1640, p. 149; CTB i. 330.

Jacob’s roles in customs and as crown financier probably enabled him to secure election to the Short Parliament for the port town of Harwich. He was named to only two committees – relating to the 1624 subsidy (21 Apr. 1640) and to the regulation of needle-making and steel wire drawing (1 May).50CJ ii. 8a, 17b. Over the summer the customs farm was reformed once again, and Jacob worked with Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington, to fund the second bishops’ war.51Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1640-1643, 82; Ashton, Crown and Money Markets, 104-5.

In elections to the Long Parliament, Jacob offered his services to the voters of Rye, backed by the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox, and was returned alongside John White I*, who had been nominated by his employer, Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset.52E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol. In a contest against two local men, John Fagge and William Hay*, both ‘godly protestants’ and close friends of the future local parliamentarian leader, Harbert Morley*, Jacob only narrowly defeated Hay, who then promptly petitioned complaining of voting irregularities.53E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/13, f. 6; Rye 47/133. Before the matter could be addressed by the committee for privileges, however, the Commons debated Jacob’s removal from the House as a monopolist. On 21 November, ‘having spoken what he could for himself’, he withdrew from the chamber, pending a decision on the case.54Procs. LP i. 226, 236; The Diurnall Occurrences (1641), 6 (E.523.1). On 6 January 1641 Oliver St John* delivered to the Commons a petition concerning the plantations, detailing ‘what cruel exactions the customers demanded’.55Procs. LP ii. 125, 128. Following a report by George Peard* on 21 January, the House resolved that Jacob was a monopolist, and a projector in the tobacco business, and that he was to be expelled from the House.56CJ ii. 71a; Procs. LP ii. 235, 236, 238; Diurnall Occurrences, 21.

Jacob and the other customs farmers were then investigated by Parliament.57Procs. LP iv. 526-8, 533-7. On 25 May MPs heard that Jacob had personally received £116,175 from the customs.58Procs. LP iv. 561, 564, 565, 567, 568. When he was brought to the bar of the House the next day, some Members advocated that he should be forced to kneel as a delinquent, although that motion was laid aside.59Procs. LP iv. 581-2, 585-7, 591-2, 594-5. The farmers’ collective offer to compound at £150,000 was accepted, while Jacob joined with Sir Nicholas Crisp* on 29 May to compound at £15,000 for more recent advances to the king.60Procs. LP iv. 640-1, 643, 645-8; Diurnall Occurrences, 110-11, 113. No longer in receipt of customs revenue, Jacob – declared a delinquent on 1 June – and his colleagues faced immense debts and pressure from creditors, particularly after 2 June, when their plea for more time to pay their fines was rejected.61Procs. LP iv. 671-3, 676, 679-81, 683, 695; Diurnall Occurrences, 116. Called in again on 5 August, Jacob and Sir Paul Pindar ‘would have excused themselves from payment by their inability’.62Procs. LP vi. 210, 214.

Given the hostility towards them in Parliament, many of the customers turned to the king for support, and became royalists during the civil war.63Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1640-1643, 224-5. Jacob remained in London and appears to have avoided active participation on either side, but there were widespread suspicions regarding his allegiance. By 29 October 1642 he had been imprisoned in Crosby House for refusing to contribute money to Parliament.64CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 403. In December he appears to have dispatched £500 to the Guildhall, however, and by January 1643 he had been released, and was living in the parish of All Hallows Steyning.65CCAM 8; A. Povah, Annals of St Olave Hart Street and Allhallows Staining (1894), 338. Soon afterwards Parliament gave him permission to receive the rents of Sutton Marsh, according to the terms of a grant in May 1642.66LJ v. 39b, 675b. Despite rumours that he had sent £2,000 to king at Oxford, Jacob retained the receivership until March 1644, when he was removed for failure to fulfil his duties.67CCAM 1096; LJ vi. 38b, 486b, 492b.

Jacob’s personal financial position appears to have been weak throughout the 1640s. An order given at Oxford in October 1643 for the repayment by the king of £253,000 advanced by Jacob and the other customs officers was apparently never implemented.68CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 491. Assessed at £2,000 by the Committee for Advance of Money (CAM) that September, Jacob was either unable or reluctant to pay the entire amount.69CCAM 234. In 1644 Jacob was repeatedly called to appear before Parliament’s Committee of Accounts*.70SP28/252i, f. 3; SP28/252ii, ff. 55v, 58, 58v, 74v, 94. He also faced legal action over customs impositions dating from the 1620s, when Jacob was accused of having seized £5,000 worth of goods from John Rolle*, who had refused to pay tonnage and poundage.71Add. 31116, p. 277. Furthermore, pressure from East India Company creditors forced Jacob and the other customs farmer to make an appeal to Parliament.72Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1644-1649, 20, 49. Persistent demands from the CAM elicited a further £5,000 in April 1645, but Jacob complained (6 May) that he dared not be seen in public without protection, and that previous payments had already ruined him. He was ‘resolved rather to suffer once for all than by pieces, which is the worst of evils’.73CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 442; CJ iv. 126a; CCAM 511-12, 234. In 1646 Jacob received parliamentary protection against action by the East India Company, but the CAM pursued him, and by January 1648 he was imprisoned in the upper bench, with debts amounting to nearly £100,000.74Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1644-1649, 145; CCAM 235; List of all the Prisoners in the Upper Bench Prison (1653), 4.

Still languishing in prison, during the early years of the republic Jacob and the other former customs farmers endeavoured to reach a settlement with the government. An investigation of their business launched by the council of state in June 1649 led in 1652 to the brokerage of a deal whereby the debt would be repaid out of the sale of forests.75CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 201. This enabled the farmers to fend off the threat of bankruptcy proceedings from the East India Company.76Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1650-1654, 164-5, 186, 234-5, 239, 252, 265. But Jacob remained in prison and the dissolution of the Rump delayed the conclusion of the agreement.77Prisoners in the Upper Bench, 4; Stowe 185, ff. 3, 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 37, 46, 63, 65, 66. By the terms of the act for disafforestation of the king’s forests (Nov. 1653) the customs farmers were allowed the proceeds of the sales, on condition that they advanced money to the government.78CJ vii. 321-3; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 265. However, while the deal was confirmed with the advent of the protectorate, the customers were unable to raise the full sum required, and the council eventually concluded that they had failed to honour the agreement, and thereby forfeited the benefit of the act.79CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 301, 319, 353, 357. While Jacob appears to have been at liberty by 1654, he remained heavily indebted, and his situation continued to vex the council.80Stowe 185, f. 70; CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 264, 362-4. Two years later he was considering selling his estate to Bulstrode Whitelocke* in order to raise £4,000 to £5,000.81Longleat House, Whitelocke Pprs. XVII, f. 170.

Jacob’s whereabouts and activity in the later 1650s are unclear. After the Restoration, however, he and the other customs farmers soon petitioned concerning the losses they had incurred as a result of having advanced £253,000 to Charles II’s father.82Stowe 326, ff. 100-1; Eg. 2549, f. 104. In September 1660 the king reappointed Jacob and his colleagues as commissioners for the customs.83CTB i. 226. Possibly in an attempt to protect himself from legal action by his creditors, he endeavoured to secure a seat in the Cavalier Parliament, once more for Rye. On 28 February 1661 Jacob wrote to the mayor, promoting himself as a candidate whose election would make amends for the unhappy experiences of the past, and hoping ‘that you will renew your old affections and even in justice set me where I was’.84E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/164/12. He received a courteous response, but competition for places was stiff: Richard Spencer† had backing from James, duke of York (lord warden of the Cinque Ports) while Harbert Morley* had developed a strong local interest.85E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/164/13, 14, 22. Jacob professed himself ‘still ambitious to continue’, but he received only a small fraction of the votes cast.86E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/164/20, 47/165.

After several fruitless petitions, some financial relief was forthcoming. In 1662 Jacob was granted the office of customer of petty customs and contracted with the king to lease all of the customs for five years; two years later he received a further £15,000 out of the customs.87CTB i. 132, 226, 330, 421, 431, 506; Stowe 326, f. 102. Lobbying by the old customs farmers produced a grant of £10,000 towards their losses (1663) and a warrant for £190,000 to be paid them, in recognition of a debt which the king regarded as being binding in honour, if not law (1664).88Stowe 326, f. 104; CTB i. 628; SO3/15, pp. 266, 340, 368. In final recognition of his loyalty, Jacob was made a gentleman of the privy chamber in 1664, and awarded a baronetcy in January 1665.89Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 174; C231/7, p. 248; CTB i. 651.

By the end of his life Jacob had recovered the family’s fortunes. His property in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Middlesex and Essex was worth £3,000 a year and he had cleared all but £3,000 of his debts.90C33/234, f. 765. He had even extended his estate, purchasing the manor of Everton for £6,100 in 1665, and had erected almshouses in his native Gamlingay.91C33/230, f. 885; VCH Cambs. v. 87. He made comfortable provision for his daughters and eldest son.92FSL, V.a.454, p. 74; PROB11/320/104; PROB4/9632. Jacob died in March 1666, and was buried at Bromley St Leonard. His widow subsequently married William Wogan†.93C38/169/16.