RAMSDEN, John (1613-aft. 1676), of Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorks.

Ramsden belonged to a prominent and well-connected Hull mercantile family. His father, John Ramsden senior – later described as ‘a gentleman of great erudition, remarkable piety and universal esteem’ – was the town’s leading cloth exporter by the 1630s and a senior figure in the corporation.13T. Gent, Annales Regioduni Hullini (1735), 39; VCH E. Riding, i. 142. He was twice elected mayor of Hull, but was struck down by the plague before completing his second term of office.14Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, pp. 107, 444, 453. John Ramsden junior followed closely in his father’s footsteps, joining the Hull Merchant Adventurers Society in 1632 and obtaining his freedom of the town by patrimony in 1639.15Hull Hist. Cent. C DSN/1, unfol.; C BRG/1, f. 210. He evidently inherited his father’s mercantile operation, and by 1640 he was a business partner of the man who was to emerge as Hull’s most prominent royalist, Alderman James Watkinson†.16E190/318/7; E134/1653-4/HIL5; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘James Watkinson’.

Despite his links with Watkinson, Ramsden seems to have supported Parliament during the civil war. In November 1642, he contributed £20 on the propositions for the maintenance of the earl of Essex’s army, although it is possible that he donated this sum under pressure from the town’s draconian parliamentarian governor, Sir John Hotham*.17SP28/189, pt. 2, unfol. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Ramsden would have been elected the town’s sheriff in 1644, or an alderman in 1647, if he was suspected of harbouring royalist sympathies.18Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, pp. 642, 762. Certainly the parliamentarian authorities and Hotham’s successor, the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), were keen to ensure that only men of ‘constant and public affection to the Parliament’ held municipal office in Hull.19Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, pp. 598, 822. A few months after Ramsden’s election to the bench, the corporation employed him to liaise with the town’s MPs and friends at Westminster, which was not a task it would have entrusted to a man in any way ill-affected to Parliament.20Hull Hist. Cent. C BRM/232 (Instructions to John Ramsden, 20 Dec. 1647).

But if Ramsden remained at least outwardly loyal to Parliament during the 1640s, there are signs that he had deep misgivings about the king’s execution and the establishment of a republic. This may well explain why Charles II thought fit to write to Ramsden in April 1649 (when he was mayor of Hull) thanking him for his ‘affection’ and encouraging him to return Hull to royal authority.21CCSP ii. 8. An almost identical letter was sent to one of the town’s ministers, William Styles, a moderate puritan. Beyond their dislike of the regicide, neither Ramsden nor Styles appear to have given the royalists any firm grounds for believing that they could be suborned. And in the event, Ramsden made no effort to betray Hull, nor did he withdraw from civic office after the king’s execution. Furthermore, when Peregrine Pelham, one of the town’s MPs, was elected the new mayor in September 1649, but was detained at Westminster by his ‘necessary service in Parliament’, the Rump was content to allow Ramsden to serve as Pelham’s deputy until the latter could assume office.22CJ vi. 309a; Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, p. 822.

Ramsden’s tenure as deputy mayor lasted until March 1650, when Parliament, at Pelham’s request, ordered that Alderman Thomas Raikes replace Ramsden as deputy mayor.23Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, p. 829. Evidently Ramsden had refused to take the Engagement, abjuring monarchy and the House of Lords, although it was not until September 1650 that Parliament ordered that he be removed from the bench.24CJ vi. 464a; Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/3, pp. 842-3. Given the apparent preponderance of Presbyterians among those purged from local office for refusal to subscribe the Engagement, it seems likely that Ramsden was also a Presbyterian of some description.

Very little is known about Ramsden for most of the interregnum. He was omitted from local parliamentary committees after 1649, and there is almost no mention of him in the Hull corporation minutes between 1650 and 1659. But though he had been removed from the bench, he retained his freedom of the town, and by the late 1650s he was probably Hull’s wealthiest and most politically experienced ‘burgess’ – that is, senior freeman. It was a measure both of his local standing by the late 1650s and how much the political climate had changed since the days of the Rump that Ramsden felt sufficiently confident to stand at Hull in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659. Competition for places was fierce, with at least five candidates vying for election – namely, Ramsden, Andrew Marvell* (son of the one the town’s former ministers), Colonel Henry Smith (the town’s governor), Thomas Strickland* (son of the East Riding political grandee Sir William Strickland*) and the arch-republican Sir Henry Vane II*. Prior to the election, it was reported that Ramsden and Marvell (who may have been standing together) commanded the strongest interest in the town, although it was conceived that Vane, who apparently had a ‘considerable party’, might gain a seat ‘by the divisions of the rest’. This suggests that Ramsden and the other candidates were all canvassing, and thus threatening to split, the moderate, or pro-Cromwellian, vote. On election day (10 Jan.), however, Ramsden and Marvell received the ‘major vote’ of the corporation and burgesses and were duly elected.25Supra, ‘Kingston-upon-Hull’.

Although Ramsden appears to have attended 106 sittings of the Commons between early February and 21 April 1659, he was one of its least active Members.26Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/4, p. 284. He made no recorded contribution to debate and was named to just two committees – those for establishing a godly ministry in the northern counties (5 Feb.) and to bring in a bill for the enfranchisement of County Durham (31 Mar.).27CJ vii. 600b, 622b. He still seems to have been persona non grata with the (restored) Rump, for his name does not appear in the July 1659 militia commission.

Ramsden stood for Hull in the elections to the 1660 Convention, and, once again, there was strong competition for places, with at least six candidates in the running: Ramsden and Marvell (who, again, probably stood together), William Lister (the town’s recorder and its MP in the first and second protectoral Parliaments), Edward Barnard (a local lawyer), Francis Thorpe* (the town’s former recorder) and Colonel Matthew Alured*, a staunch commonwealthsman. Ramsden and Marvell – and, for that matter, Lister and Barnard – almost certainly stood as supporters of a return to monarchy. On election day (2 Apr. 1660), the contest went to a poll, with Ramsden receiving 227 votes, Marvell 141, Barnard 113, Lister 80, and Alured and Thorpe a mere 90 votes between them.28Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/4, p. 303. Royalist feeling was apparently strong in Hull by the spring of 1660, and the wide margin of Ramsden’s victory suggests that he was closely identified with the campaign for restoring the Stuart monarchy.29Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/4, pp. 304-6, 308, 309-11. The fact that his younger brother, William Ramsden†, was serving as mayor may also have proved an advantage.30Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/4, p. 290. Following their election, both Ramsden and Marvell were marked by Philip Lord Wharton as members who could be expected to favour a Presbyterian church settlement – further evidence, perhaps, that Ramsden was a man of moderate puritan sympathies.31G.T.F. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR lxxix. 344. Ramsden does not appear to have taken his seat in the Convention until December; but having done so he was assiduous in pursuing the town’s interests at Westminster. Once again, however, he seems to have been largely inactive in the House itself, taking no part in debate and receiving no committee appointments.32Hull Hist. Cent. C BRL/646; C BRB/4, pp. 315, 331, 335, 342; The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell ed. H.M. Margoliouth (3rd edn.), ii. 1, 4, 6, 9-14; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘John Ramsden’.

Ramsden stood for a third time at Hull in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament in the spring of 1661, but came last on a poll.33Hull Hist. Cent. C BRB/4, p. 355. Why Ramsden’s popularity had slumped so dramatically since the previous April is not clear. His stock was still high among the senior office-holders, however, who entreated him in June 1661 and again in May 1663 to resume his seat on the aldermanic bench.34Hull Hist. Cent. C BRL/660; C BRB/4, pp. 369, 513. But Ramsden, who seems to have retired from mercantile trading by the mid-1660s, refused these requests on the grounds that he now resided more or less permanently in the country – possibly at North Frodingham, about ten miles north of Hull.35E190/320/6; Hull Hist. Cent. C BRL/646.

Ramsden was still living in 1675, when his brother, Alderman William Ramsden, made him one of the supervisors of his will. But there is no evidence that Ramsden himself made a will, and his date of death and place of burial are not known. The size and value of his estate are likewise obscure, although he apparently owed his brother a ‘considerable sum of money’ in 1675.36Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 59, f. 175. The family’s electoral fortunes were briefly revived by William Ramsden, who was returned for Hull to the Cavalier Parliament in 1678 and represented the town in the first Exclusion Parliament as a whig.37HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘William Ramsden’.