DELVES, Nicholas (1618-90), of Hollington, Suss., Friday Street, London and Camberwell, Surr.

The Delves family had been resident in Sussex since at least the mid-sixteenth century, although as yeomen they had played no part in local politics and administration.17Suss. Manors, ii. 369. Delves’s father, Thomas, was styled a ‘grazier’, and as a younger son, Nicholas could expect little formal education or landed inheritance. In 1635, at the age of 17, he was apprenticed as a Merchant Taylor to Thomas Lawrence of Friday Street, London.18GL, Merchant Taylors’ Co. Appr. bindings, XI, f. 18. He became a freeman of the Company in 1642.19GL, Merchant Taylors’ Co. Ct. Min. Bk. 8B, unfol. Thereafter, he sought to establish himself as a merchant in London, a process probably assisted by his marriage in 1645 to a daughter of Edmund Warnett of London Bridge, a prominent member of the Cutlers’ and Haberdashers’ Company.20St Olave, Southwark, par. reg.; G. Home, Old London Bridge (1931), 213; C. Welch, Cutlers’ Co. (1923), ii. 275. By 1650, Delves had evidently achieved some degree of success in his business, and had settled in Camberwell.21St Giles, Camberwell, par. reg. The following year he was granted livery by the Merchant Taylors’ Company.22GL, Merchant Taylors’ Co. Ct. Min. Bk. 9, f. 381.

Delves played no visible part in the civil war, and was named to no local commissions or positions of responsibility until after the Restoration, which may suggest that his sympathies lay with the king’s cause. In 1659, however, Delves was returned to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell* as MP for Hastings.23C219/48. It seems clear that his election was effected through the influence of his family, whose estate lay just outside the town, while Delves had himself acquired an interest in the county with the purchase that year of the manor of Hoselands.24Dunkin, Suss. Manors, i. 229. More particularly, Delves appears to have benefited from the fact that his elder brother, Thomas, was mayor of Hastings in 1656, 1658, 1659, and 1660.25Hastings Museum, Suss., C/A/(a)2, ff. 91, 92v, 93; W.G. Moss, Town and Port of Hastings (1824), 136. The town favoured candidates sympathetic to the royal cause: the other burgess elected in 1659 was Samuel Gott*, a prominent Presbyterian in the Long Parliament, who by this time supported the return of the monarchy. Delves appears to have played no part in parliamentary proceedings, or in the events leading to the Restoration.

Delves retained his seat in the Convention of 1660, perhaps ahead of Edward Montagu II*, the nominee of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports. By 1661, however, the lord warden’s influence had been restored, and if Delves stood there for the Cavalier Parliament, he was defeated by the admiralty candidate, Edmund Waller I†. However, that December, after petitioning Charles II, Delves secured an order for repayment of £350 he had lent in March 1660 to the son of the regicide Sir Gregory Norton*, disinherited by his father for loyalty to the king.26HMC 7th Rep. 151; CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 159, 193; SP29/44, f. 202; PA, MP 25/7/61.

Meanwhile, Delves became a powerful figure in the London merchant community. Chosen in April 1661 as alderman of Vintry Ward, he was subsequently discharged from this duty at his own request, paying a fine of £420.27Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 211; CLRO, Rep. 67, ff. 226, 250. That year he was chosen master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company.28Beaven, Aldermen of London, ii. 92. In 1663, although the previous discharge was supposed to carry permanent exclusion from selection for civic office, he became a common councillor for Bread Street, and remained so almost continuously until 1671.29CLRO, Jor. 46, f. 264b; MS 109.15. His wealth, which included stock in the East India Company, was such that by 1663 he owned one of the largest houses in Camberwell; with 17 hearths, its size was exceeded only by that of Sir Edmund Bowyer.30Cal. Ct. Mins. E. I. Co. 1664-1687, 427; Blanch, Camberwell, 144. Delves was one of the most influential figures in the parish.31St Giles, Camberwell par. reg. By 1668, he had become deputy governor of the Irish Society, possibly through his connection to Sir John Lawrence, a London Haberdasher who was governor between 1668 and 1676, and who may have been a kinsman of Delves’s old master.32Beaven, Aldermen of London, ii. 88, 92. At least three of his children attended Merchant Taylors’ School, of whom at least one, Nicholas, went on to Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, as the first member of the family to attend university.33Add. 39480, f. 42.

Delves drew up his will in 1687, and left the major part of his estate to his daughter and executor, Martha Delves. His wife and most of his children appear to have predeceased him, only one other child being mentioned.34PROB11/417/510. No further member of the family sat in Parliament.