GOLLOP, George (1581-1650), of Bugle Street, Southampton, and Stanbridge, Hants.

Gollop was a younger son of a Dorset yeoman, from whom he had only a small inheritance. While his brothers Gibbs and William were educated at Oxford and became clergymen, he was apprenticed in 1596 to a kinsman, also George Gollop, a mercer in Southampton.20Southampton RO, SC2/6/6, f. 133; PROB11/73/283; Third Bk. of Remembrance, ed. Merson, iv. 73, 96; Bk of Examinations and Depositions ed. Anderson, i. 3n.; Stoke Abbott par. reg.; Al. Ox.; Clergy of the C of E database. At his master’s death in 1605 Gollop junior took over the business in Southampton, as a ship-owner and merchant, exporting woollen cloth, and importing paper and linen from France and Spain, and fish from Newfoundland.21PROB11/106/21; Bk. of Examinations and Depositions ed. Anderson, ii. 73; iii. 84. A key business partner was John Major†, a prominent local brewer and civic leader.22Bk. of Examinations and Depositions ed. Anderson, i. 45. Gollop himself rose swiftly through the ranks of civic office, becoming an alderman and serving as mayor in 1622.23Misc. Ppr.s of Captain Thomas Stockwell ed. J. Rutherford (Southampton Rec. Soc. xxxii-xxxiii), i. 98, ii. 53, 79, 96, 99, 100; Bk. of Examinations and Depositions ed. Thomson, 7, 16-18; Southampton Court Leet Recs. ed. Hearnshaw, 435, 452, 471, 495, 560; Southampton RO, SC5/2/2, ff. 194, 206; SC5/12/238, 244; SC3/1/1, f. 156; Southampton Assembly Bks. ed. Horrocks, iii. 51, 58, 69, 70; iv. 60; Bk. of Remembrance ed. Gidden, 103-5; APC 1621-3, p. 147; Southampton RO, SC2/1/6, f. 200.

In addition to a lease of the ruined castle in Southampton, by 1625 Gollop had acquired an estate at Stanbridge, near Romsey.24Davies, Hist. Southampton, 83. Elected to Parliament for Southampton in 1625, 1626 and 1628, only on the last occasion did he make any notable impression on proceedings. He contributed to debates on billeting in April and June 1628, largely on the basis of his own town’s experience, and received two committee nominations.25Procs. 1628, iv. 147, 159; vi. 64; HP Commons 1604-1629. Initially he had refused to contribute to the Forced Loan, but when ordered in January 1627 to attend the privy council, he relented.26Add. 21922, ff. 86v-88v. Although his eldest brother Roger Gollop was listed in 1636 among those refusing to pay Ship Money in Dorset, there is no sign that George was similarly recalcitrant.27CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 395. He was, however, sufficiently close to his family to be named with Gibbs and William as their brother Roger’s overseers, and to acquire as apprentices Benjamin, son of Richard Gollop of North Bowood (1628) and Henry, son of Henry Gollop of Whitchurch (1637).28PROB11/184/316; Cal. Southampton Apprenticeship Registers, 1609-1740 ed. Merson, 16, 27.

Gollop was not returned to Parliament for Southampton in the spring of 1640, but he was elected in the autumn with fellow merchant and member of the corporation Edward Exton*. Once again, there is little trace of his activity, whether under his usual name of ‘Gallop’ or otherwise. On 21 December 1640 he was granted leave of absence, four days after Exton had been excused.29CJ ii. 52b, 55a. Although he took the Protestation promptly on 3 May 1641, he received no committee appointments before the outbreak of civil war.30CJ ii. 133a. The conflict underlined the strategic importance of south coast ports, but the long-suspect loyalty of the governor of Portsmouth, Colonel George Goring*, doubtless ensured that the attention of Hampshire parliamentarian leaders initially focused on securing that garrison rather than on Southampton. While Sir William Lewis*, Sir Thomas Jervoise* and Sir William Waller* were thus preoccupied, Gollop and Exton, as ‘burgesses for that town’, appear to have shouldered much of the responsibility for implementing a parliamentary order of 25-26 August to take possession of and evaluate silver, cochineal and other commodities, cargo of the Clare or Sancta Clara which had unexpectedly arrived from the West Indies, and dispatch it to London pending an investigation of ownership.31 CJ ii. 736b-737a, 739a; Godwin, Civil War in Hants (1904), 6-7. That matter surfaced in Parliament on numerous occasions between then and early January 1643, although the local MPs’ role in it does not appear.32CJ ii. 748b, 760a, 765a, 790a, 897a, 903b, 905b, 911b; iv. 406b, 533a.

On 4 November John Button I* reported to Commons leader John Pym* on a meeting in Southampton with the mayor and the two borough MPs; pronouncing them ‘very vigilant and faithful’, he recommended their addition to the committee for Hampshire.33HMC 10th Rep. VI, 91. However, as royalists around former MP and resident Sir John Mill* asserted themselves in the town, some observers obviously considered Gollop and Exton tainted with disaffection, perhaps because both had royalist kin – in Gollop’s case his brother William, rector of Stoke Abbott.34Walker Revised, 133. Gollop and Exton were summoned on 29 November to the Commons, ‘all delays and excuses set apart’; three days later it was ordered they be ‘brought up in safe custody’.35CJ ii. 869b, 872b. Placatory correspondence from the Southampton corporation and the lending of £2,000 towards the parliamentarian war effort led at least to the release of the town clerk, also imprisoned, and Gollop or Exton went to Portsmouth to make peace with the parliamentarian garrison there, but suspicion persisted at Westminster into the early months of 1643.36Davies, Hist. Southampton, 485-7; CJ ii. 896b. Royalist propaganda was disseminated, the mayor and one of the aldermen were accused of delinquency, and the two MPs were again summoned to attend the service of the House (1, 13 Apr. 1643).37CJ ii. 915a, 976b; iii. 26a, 42a. It is possible, however, that throughout these weeks Gollop and Exton had been upholding the parliamentary cause locally. On 19 April their reasons for absence were approved, and they were admitted to the House.38CJ iii. 52a.

Gollop had already been made a sequestration commissioner for Hampshire in March.39A. and O. He took the Solemn League and Covenant on 6 June and two weeks later was named to a committee to consider a petition from the deputies of Guernsey (19 June).40CJ iii. 118a, 134a. But it was three months before he received his next appointment, when he was added to the committee for the garrison of Gloucester (23 Sept.).41CJ iii. 254a. Thereafter much of Gollop’s visible activity in the House related to Hampshire matters or to trade. Among those named on 26 October to consider a petition from the mayor of Southampton, he probably spent some time in the town in the following few months.42CJ iii. 289a.

By January 1644 Gollop and Exton were receiving money from the excise commissioners to provide for the ‘pressing necessities’ of Southampton and local forts, a role they continued to fulfil into 1646, alongside administering the interest on loans made by the town to Parliament and serving on the county committee.43CJ iii. 361b, 399a, 634b; iv. 527b; Add. 24860, f. 145; LJ vi. 635b; x. 447b. On 9 May 1644 both were nominated to the committee charged with preparing the establishment of the Hampshire garrisons.44CJ iii. 486a. A wider interest in military matters is suggested by their addition to a committee considering the ordinance relating to Colonel John Fox, a commander in the west midlands (6 June).45CJ iii. 519a. In the meantime his mercantile background may explain appointments to committees concerning the regulation of customs and excise duties on tobacco (14 Feb.) and the declaration concerning foreign nations trading with ports under royalist control (20 May).46CJ iii. 399b, 501a.

The only committees on matters of national importance to which Gollop was named were the committee for petitions, to which he was added (after a prolonged period of invisibility in the House) on 2 August 1645, and the committee to examine the petitions of Scottish officers, to which he was nominated on 23 August that year.47CJ iv. 228b, 250a. His appearance in the record was fleeting. Named to the first classis for Hampshire in November 1645, he was granted leave to go to the country on 18 March 1646 and on the following 30 April a new ordinance was issued for refunding to him and Exton the loan money.48King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 263; CJ iv. 478a, 527b. Thereafter his absence was excused in October 1647 and April 1648.49CJ v. 330a, 543b. In August 1648 he was appointed to the committee for Hampshire, but his absence from the House was excused once again on 27 September.50CJ v. 667a; vi. 34b. Although his name appears on one of the lists of those Members purged by the army on 6 December, it is not clear whether he was at Westminster at the time. Thereafter he probably did not sit.51A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62).. That Gollop was prepared to accommodate the new republican regime, however, is indicated by his willingness in July 1649 to lend £40 towards a fund to enable the more speedy transport of troops to Ireland.52Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 2.

Gollop died in the summer of 1650, and was buried in All Hallows church in Southampton. His will, which included a bequest of £200 to establish a trust for the poor in Southampton, was proved by a nephew, Roger Gollop*, who sat for Southampton in 1659.53PROB11/213/34; Southampton RO, SC2/1/8, f. 62.