BAKER, James (d. 1689), of Shaftesbury, Dorset.

Although nothing is known of James Baker’s background, he was evidently a well-established figure in Shaftesbury in the years before the civil war. He married at St Peter’s church in 1631, and two of his sons were baptised there in 1640 and 1642.14Dorset RO, St Peter’s Shaftesbury par. regs. He was taxed on lands held in the borough and nearby Motcombe in 1641 and 1642, and he was serving as constable and churchwarden of St Peter’s parish by 1642.15E179/105/335, m.2; E179/105/336, m. 6; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 47; Dorset Protestation Returns, 142. Baker’s activity in the early stages of the civil war is unknown but in 1645 he became the receiver for parliamentarian revenues in the Shaftesbury division, and soon afterwards he was appointed solicitor to the Dorset standing committee.16E113/13, unfol. He was appointed sequestrator of the Shaftesbury division in October 1646, and in the following December became collector of monies in Shaftesbury, in place of one John Poldon.17Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 26, 111. He also became involved with the disposal of sequestered royalist estates, including those of the 1st earl of Bristol in 1646-7, the 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1647 and the 11th Baron Stourton in 1648-9, and was apparently given a free hand to negotiate rents directly with the new tenants.18Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 26, 144-5, 194-5, 223, 268, 290, 411, 503.

By the late 1640s, Baker had become something of a power-broker within the borough of Shaftesbury. Baker’s influence can clearly be seen during the disputed Shaftesbury election of the winter of 1646-7. John Fitzjames*, one of the hopeful candidates in that by-election, suspected that Baker was active in building support in the borough for his rival, George Starre*. Fitzjames complained in October that Starre’s tactics were ‘much underground, and Baker his chief engineer’.19Alnwick, Northumberland 547, ff. 53v-4. A month later Fitzjames was further discouraged because ‘Baker stands off, and will not come near me’.20Alnwick, Northumberland 547, ff. 61v-2v. In the end Starre won the seat, probably through the intervention of his friends in the army rather than through the support of Baker; but the reality of Baker’s influence is apparent from other sources. The county committee had come to rely on him for settling local disputes, as in April 1647 when he was involved in the appointment and funding of new ministers in Shaftesbury.21Dorset Standing Cttee, ed. Mayo, 260. Baker’s appointment as mayor of the borough in the year from Michaelmas 1647 confirmed his position there.22Hutchins, Dorset iii. 16. His term as mayor was marked by another electoral controversy. After Starre’s death in 1647, there was yet another by-election, and Baker, amongst others, was accused of rigging the election of John Fry*, Starre’s replacement, in October 1647.23C.H. Mayo, Municipal Recs. of the Borough of Shaftesbury (Sherborne, 1889), 65-6. The case was eventually decided in Fry’s favour, but the controversy resulted in the new MP’s arrival at Westminster being delayed until the autumn of 1648.24CJ vi. 34a. In the meantime there was further political unrest in Shaftesbury, which was considered a hotbed of royalism. In the summer of 1648 Baker was authorised to search the houses of likely rebels to confiscate their weapons, and in the same period he was commissioned to command a foot company in the local militia.25Dorset Standing Cttee, ed. Mayo, 412; E113/13, unfol.

Baker supported the commonwealth regime, and was appointed as an assessment commissioner for Dorset from April 1649.26A. and O. During this period he became a close associate of another rising man, James Dewy I*. In November 1649 both men were appointed to the nine-man sequestration commission for Dorset, and in January 1650 they joined Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* as commissioners to collect signatures for the Engagement at Blandford.27Christie, Shaftesbury i. appx i. p. liv. In March 1650 Baker was confirmed in his command in the local militia forces, subsequently being styled Major Baker, while Dewy retained his rank of captain.28CSP Dom. 1650, p. 505; 1653-4, p. 102. Government concerns about an uprising in Dorset and Somerset in the summer of 1653 saw both Baker and Dewy involved in the arrest of suspects and the examination of local reports.29CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 102, 110, 127. This partnership continued under the protectorate. Baker and Dewy worked together in suppressing Penruddock’s western rising in the spring of 1655, and around this time Baker assisted Dewy in his attempt to arrest another royalist suspect, Hancock Clarke, which resulted in a serious assault on his father, the rector of Todbere.30Bayley, Dorset, 451. In December 1655 Baker and Dewy became commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth, acting under the local major general, John Disbrowe*; and, Baker’s efforts to remove Mr Swetnam, the ‘malignant’ postmaster at Shaftesbury led Disbrowe to praise him as ‘a person of known integrity’.31TSP iv. 305, 316-7.

Baker and Dewy did not always see eye-to-eye, however. Whereas Dewy attracted much criticism and hatred for his role in the sequestrations commission and his heavy-handedness as a JP, Baker retained sufficient popularity to be re-elected as mayor of Shaftesbury for 1656-7.32Hutchins, Dorset iii. 16. Baker also seems to have favoured a degree of religious toleration. The Dorset Quakers condemned Dewy as their enemy, but listed ‘James Baker of Shaston’ among such ‘men as are moderate, and against persecution’.33SP18/130, f. 46. Baker was also willing to build bridges with the crypto-royalists who became more important in the county after Oliver Cromwell’s death in September 1658. This is exemplified by his cooperation with John Fitzjames in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in December 1658. Fitzjames had approached Baker for support in the Shaftesbury election, confident that ‘by your means [I] can yield so considerable a number, as (if they be unanimous) will easily set an end to any dispute’, and had promised to ‘refer myself wholly to your care and affections’ in the matter.34Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 50v. Baker seemed willing to support Fitzjames, but, aware that Dewy also had eyes on the Shaftesbury seat, he was anxious that his activities on his behalf should not become common knowledge.35Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 54. ‘I think I understand pretty right how you must not appear’, Fitzjames wrote to Baker, ‘you may give your own voice for him if you please, and yet not prejudice the other friend you intend’.36Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 57. By the end of December 1658 Baker himself had become the candidate for Shaftesbury, but again was fearful of the penalties of too open an involvement with any political group.37Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 62v. Fitzjames reassured him: ‘though you look with so much modesty on yourself, you have this advantage thereby, as to gain the greater in the thoughts and hearts of your friends, and this way, you may be the capable to serve them, and be out of the reach of others’.38Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 62v. Baker was duly returned, but there is no record of his participation in the third protectorate Parliament.

Baker’s reluctance to take too many risks perhaps explains his inactivity in Parliament in the year before the restoration of the king. In August 1659, when the Shaftesbury royalists discussed joining the rebellion of Sir George Boothe* they were careful not to let news of their plans reach the former mayor.39Bayley, Dorset, 383. Baker was re-elected for Shaftesbury in April 1660, and signed the loyal address from Dorset to Charles II, but his other activities in the Convention are obscured by the difficulty in separating his movements from those of Alexander Baker†.40HP Commons 1660-90. He probably remained absent from Westminster after being given leave to visit the country in August.41CJ viii. 106a, 122a. In February 1663 he was investigated for his activities as a receiver during the civil war and interregnum, but he denied having played an important role in public affairs and no further action was taken. Baker continued to reside in Shaftesbury in the last few decades of his life. He owned a substantial town house, with seven hearths, in the borough in 1664, and was involved in various legal disputes in later years.42Dorset Hearth Tax ed. Meekings, 22; C5/447/64; C5/475/25; C7/511/5. He died intestate in 1689, and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s, Shaftesbury.43Dorset RO, St Peter’s Shaftesbury par. regs. Although nothing certain is known of his descendants, it is likely that Thomas Baker, town clerk of Shaftesbury in 1657, was his son.44Hutchins, Dorset iii. 18. Thomas’s son, also James Baker, matriculated at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1674.45Al. Ox.