CLAPHAM, Christopher (1607-86), of Uffington, Lincs.

The Clapham family had settled in Yorkshire by the early fifteenth century, when they had acquired Beamsley, near Bolton Abbey, by marriage and become retainers and tenants of the area’s dominant family, the Cliffords.33Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 472; Hunter’s Peds. ed. Walker, 35. Clapham’s father was a man of relatively modest means, providing portions for his daughters of about £100 each and making bequests in his will amounting to only a few pounds.34Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 40B, f. 638. Nothing is known about Clapham’s upbringing, and although he was evidently well-versed in the law there is no record that he attended university or the Inns of Court.

By the early 1640s, Clapham seems to have been based in the West Riding and was acting as a financial agent to Sir Ferdinando Fairfax* (the future parliamentarian general, 2nd Baron Fairfax).35Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 77; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 225. He appears to have remained neutral during the civil war or at least militarily and politically inactive. However, three of his brothers fought for the king in both civil wars, and it has been inferred that Clapham himself was royalist in sympathy.36Hunter’s Peds. ed. Walker, 37; HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Christopher Clapham’. Yet he was still on good terms with Lord Fairfax in 1645, and all the evidence suggests that he successfully accommodated himself to the Rump and the protectorate – and, indeed, to the restored crown thereafter.37Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 99. Although he was evidently an accomplished trimmer, several of his closest friends and business associates were committed parliamentarians. By July 1649 at the latest, he was steward to Lady Anne Clifford, the wife of the parliamentarian peer Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, and was rubbing shoulders with her legal adviser (and Lord Fairfax’s son-in-law), Sir Thomas Widdrington*, a leading northern Rumper.38Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey mss, box 2, letters from W. Thornton, no. 195; Cumbria RO (Kendal), WDHOTH/3/44/6/50. In March 1650, Clapham, Widdrington and the leading Yorkshire parliamentarian Sir Henry Cholmley* spent a week at Skipton Castle with the countess, sorting out her problems with her tenants in Craven and Westmorland.39Cumbria RO (Kendal), WDHOTH/3/44/6/53; G.C. Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford (Kendal, 1922), 192, 196, 212, 214, 218, 222; M. Mullett, Patronage, Power and Politics in Appleby in the Era of Lady Anne Clifford, 1649-89 (Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. tract ser. xxv), 22-3. Clapham, too, became a tenant of Lady Clifford, leasing Barden Tower and other property in Yorkshire from her during the interregnum.40R.T. Spence, Lady Anne Clifford (Stroud, 1997), 117.

Through purchase and probably by marriage, Clapham acquired property at Wakefield, in south Yorkshire, and he seems to have divided most of his time in the early 1650s between Wakefield and his second wife’s property at Twyford, in Middlesex.41C7/435/36; Add. 21420, f. 160; Add. 21421, ff. 11, 168, 195; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 417. He strengthened his links with Yorkshire’s parliamentarian grandees following the marriage of his niece in 1650 to Captain Adam Baynes*, who was a leading figure in the West Riding republican faction and the right-hand-man of Major-general John Lambert*.42Supra, ‘Adam Baynes’; Add. 21421, f. 11; Hunter’s Peds. ed. Walker, 37. From 1651 through to 1659 and probably beyond, Clapham maintained a warm correspondence with Baynes – often styling himself in his letters to Baynes ‘your truly loving uncle’ – and the two men evidently became close personal friends and collaborators on a number of money-making ventures, most notably the farming of the excise in the West Riding.43Add. 21420, f. 160; Add. 21421, ff. 11, 168, 195; Add. 21423, ff. 94, 185, 186; Add. 21424, ff. 36, 47, 57, 327; Add. 21425, f. 37; Add. 21426, ff. 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71.

Clapham’s connection with Lambert and Baynes may have been a factor in his appointment by the excise commissioners in December 1650 as a ‘deputy and sub-commissioner’ for receiving and collecting the excise on beer in the West Riding. However, Clapham had done much to advance his claims to this office by having ‘the Dutch book of excise’ translated into English and printed – at a cost to himself in travelling and other charges, he claimed, of £400.44C7/435/36. His appointment was for one year, but there is ample evidence, mainly from his letters to Baynes, that he continued to be involved in the farming of the West Riding excise throughout the 1650s and well into the 1660s.45Add. 21421, f. 168; Add. 21423, f. 186; Add. 21425, f. 37; Eg. 3328, f. 13; CTB i. 495; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 296. In the process, he seems to have become closely identified with Baynes’s local anti-Presbyterian faction. He certainly looked to Baynes for protection against those in the West Riding opposed to the excise – a group that included leading Presbyterians such as John Stanhope* and Colonel Henry Tempest*, who were keen to undermine Baynes’s political influence.46Infra, ‘John Stanhope’; ‘Henry Tempest’; Add. 21421, f. 168; Add. 21423, f. 186; Add. 21424, f. 36. Clapham’s involvement with the excise may also have contributed to the impression that he was ‘very rich’, although he himself denied such reports.47Add. 21426, f. 70. Indeed, in 1651 he was obliged to borrow £6,000 by statute staple.48LC4/203, f. 172.

By late 1655, Clapham seems to have taken up residence either in Stamford or at the nearby manor house of Uffington, which he leased from George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham – the son-in-law of Thomas Fairfax*, 3rd Baron Fairfax.49Add. 21423, f. 185; Lincs. RO, PSJ/3/2/1/16; F.E.D. Willis, Hist. of Uffington (1914), 43, 45. In 1656, he purchased a house and lands in Stamford, and in November 1658 he was admitted a freeman of the borough.50Lincs. RO, PSJ/2/86; Stamford Town Hall, Hall Bk. 2, f. 3v. It was on the strength of this local interest, and perhaps also his links with the Cromwellian establishment that he had forged through Baynes, that he was returned for Stamford in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659.51Supra, ‘Stamford’. Clapham received only one appointment in this Parliament – to a committee for considering a petition from Spalding and other Lincolnshire towns concerning fen drainage – and made no recorded contribution to debate.52CJ vii. 609a. In the elections to the 1660 Convention, he was returned for Appleby in Westmorland on the interest of the dowager countess of Pembroke, the owner of Appleby Castle.53Supra, ‘Appleby’; HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Appleby’; The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford ed. D.J.H. Clifford (Stroud, 2011), 144. By this date, the countess employed Christopher’s younger brother – but possibly a more distant kinsman – Richard Clapham of Appleby, as her steward in Westmorland, and it was on the latter’s recommendation that she had approved the return of Baynes for the borough in 1659.54Supra, ‘Appleby’; C54/3975/30.

At the Restoration, Clapham apparently had little difficulty satisfying the crown of his loyalty – or at least of his potential usefulness in its service – and in June 1660 he was knighted.55Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 228. Later that year he successfully petitioned the crown for confirmation of his title to the manor of Wakefield and other properties in the area which he had purchased from Sir Gervase Clifton* and the trustees of the executed parliamentarian turncoat, Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland.56C54/3975/30; Morehouse, Hist. of Kirkburton, 46-7; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 417; 1661-2, p. 38. In the elections to the Cavalier Parliament he stood once again for Stamford and was listed by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as a likely supporter of a Presbyterian church settlement.57G.F.T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 353. However, in what seems to have been a stiffly contested election, Clapham was defeated by two locally-connected Cavaliers. He petitioned the committee of privileges against the result, but his complaint was not upheld.58Stamford Town Hall, Hall Bk. 2, f. 10; HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Stamford’. He remained an active figure in local affairs, becoming one of the undertakers for the drainage of Deeping Fen – in which he acquired over 700 acres – and was considered sufficiently loyal to be appointed a deputy lieutenant and sheriff of Lincolnshire in the early 1680s.59Lincs. RO, PSJ/3/2/4/1; CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 515; 1682, p. 514; List of Sheriffs (L. and I. ix), 81.

Clapham died in the summer of 1686 and was buried at St Mary’s church, Stamford, on 16 August.60Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 475. In his will, he left the bulk of his estate – which included money owed to him in excess of £8,000 – to his grandchildren. He also charged his estate with annuities worth £65 a year and bequests in excess of £1,000.61PROB11/385, ff. 206-7. None of his immediate family sat in Parliament.