SICKLEMOR, John (c.1612-70), of Gray’s Inn, Mdx., and Ipswich, Suff.

John Sicklemor’s family had been resident in Ipswich for several generations and his father owned a manor in the nearby parish of Tuddenham St Martin.25Fragmenta Geneal. x. 65-7. John Sicklemor senior was much involved as an alderman in Ipswich civic politics during the 1630s and 1640s. When Samuel Ward, the town preacher, was tried in 1635 by the court of high commission for espousing his anti-formalist views, John Sicklemor senior was one of the witnesses called by his defence.26CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 504-5; 1635-6, pp. 98, 103; Bacon, Annalls, 424n, 523-4n; Oxford DNB, ‘Samuel Ward’. In 1637 he got another opportunity to demonstrate his anti-Laudian opinions when he was one of the aldermen in the delegation sent by the Ipswich corporation to present the king with a petition giving its side in its dispute with Bishop Wren of Norwich.27Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, f. 141. In 1641 he shared the duties of the town’s justices of the peace with John Brandlinge* and William Cage*. Again in conjunction with Cage (whose daughter was probably by this time married to his nephew, Thomas Blosse of Belsted), he also served the following year.28Bacon, Annalls, 528, 529; Vis. Suff. 1561, 1577 and 1612 ed. W.C. Metcalfe (Exeter, 1882), 114-15. This existing involvement in local politics suggests that it was the father who in 1643 was appointed as a member of the county committee and the Ipswich additional committee, and as a commissioner for the assessment, the sequestration of delinquents and the levying of money.29A. and O.

It is only from the mid-1640s that clear information survives about the son’s activities. Previously he was probably preoccupied with his career as a lawyer, although as a member of Gray’s Inn, he had contact with its network of Suffolk godly lawyers and thus his native county. His marriage to Anne Bedingfield in 1646 certainly placed him within that circle. Her father, Philip Bedingfield*, had attended this inn and her mother was a Bacon, the sister of Nathaniel* and Francis Bacon*. In the years following his marriage, Sicklemor was in regular contact with his Bedingfield in-laws. In 1648 he and his wife’s cousin, Thomas Bedingfield, together purchased lands at Copdock, several miles outside Ipswich, from a recusant who had been forced by sequestration to sell up.30Norf. RO, WLS XXXII/13-14; Copinger, Manors of Suff. vi. 4, 35; CCC 1867. That same year, Thomas’s father, Sir Thomas Bedingfield*, on being presented to the court of common pleas as one of the new serjeants-at-law, appointed Sicklemor to perform the traditional distribution of rings to the officials of the court.31Baker, Serjeants at Law, 441. Sicklemor also witnessed, with Francis Bacon, the 1650 will of another of Philip’s brothers, Anthony Bedingfield*.32PROB11/224/385. Soon he was a party to various land transactions by the Bedingfields.33Norf. RO, NRS 20902; NRS 20881.

In 1644 Sicklemor inherited the manor of Tuddenham from his father, but this was not enough to elevate him into the circle of those gentlemen of the county who mattered.34PROB11/193/105. Those positions he held in Suffolk during the 1640s and 1650s were unimportant. Only his elections to Parliament might be thought to point to any substantial local standing. The recordership of Orford, to which he was appointed in December 1647, would have been attractive to him mainly because it was easily combined with his activity as a barrister. He had no doubt been recommended by his immediate predecessor, his brother-in-law, Richard Keble, a future commissioner of the great seal under the commonwealth.35Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE5/2/2, f. 205; HMC Var. iv. 268; R.A. Roberts, ‘The borough recs. of a Suff. town (Orford), 1559-1660’, TRHS 4th ser. xiv. 103.

Beyond this, Sicklemor is identifiable as an individual willing to advance money for local projects. By April 1648, when he bought a half-share in the county gaol for £150, he claimed that he was owed £48. In January 1649 arrangements were made for him to transfer bonds worth £250 to Francis Bacon in a transaction connected with the Suffolk fund for maimed soldiers.36Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/1, ff. 110v-111, 118v, 159v. In 1652 he (or possibly one of his relatives) was assisting in the organizing of the repairs to the road between Ipswich and Stowmarket.37E. Anglian, n.s. ii. 78. By the 1650s the corporation of Ipswich held land from him, with Jacob Caley* acting as one of the feoffees, and he and the Bacon brothers were acting, on behalf of the town, as stewards of Ulveston Hall.38Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/6, p. 166; E. Anglian, n.s. ii. 293. His most important connection with Ipswich, his link with the Bacons who dominated its affairs, had survived the death of his wife. When he remarried, it was again to a granddaughter of Sir Edward Bacon: his new wife, Martha, was a daughter of Nicholas Bacon, is previous wife’s maternal uncle.

On 21 July 1654 Sicklemor was elected to Parliament for the first time. With 837 votes to his name he only just reached the top half of the list of 18 candidates for Suffolk.39Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. Having got himself elected, the only evidence of his presence at Westminster was that in November 1654 someone named him to the large committee to which the petition from William, 1st Baron Craven was referred.40CJ vii. 381a.

When he stood in the 1656 election for Suffolk, Sicklemor achieved a higher placing than two years previously. The 1,443 votes cast in his favour put him into the top four of the ten returned.41Suff. RO (Ipswich), GC17/755, f. 140v. But this counted for little for, like the other five highest-placed candidates, he was judged by the protectoral council to be disqualified. He was included in a purported remonstrance issued by those thus excluded.42CJ vii. 425b; To all the Worthy Gentlemen ([1656], E.889.8). Shortly after this, in October 1656, he sold a horse to one of the other excluded Suffolk MPs, William Bloys*.43Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA30/787, f. 160a (eccentric foliation). Sicklemor’s exclusion was not permanent. When Parliament reassembled in January 1658, in the company of Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, John Fitzjames* and William Brisco*, he successfully sought admission to the House.44Burton’s Diary, ii. 347.

From 1653, following the resignation of (Sir) Harbottle Grimston*, Sicklemor had held the recordership of Harwich, the important Essex port which was only a short ferry ride from Ipswich.45Harwich bor. recs. 2/1; 98/15, pp. 91-115; 37/3. He was thus an obvious choice as one of the town’s MPs when the old franchises were restored in 1658 (thereby ruling out for him the option of standing for a county seat). What, if anything, he contributed to this Parliament is not recorded.

In January 1660 Sicklemor added his name to the Suffolk petition to George Monck* requesting the summoning of a free Parliament.46Suff. RO (Ipswich), HA93/7/36; Suff. ed. Everitt, 128. At about this time an army officer stationed at Ipswich reported to the council of state rumours about the likely short duration of the Rump spread by one of Sicklemor’s servants.47CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 369. In March 1660 he finally made it to the local bench as a justice of the peace for the county and other local offices also followed.48Bodl. Tanner 226, p. 187; A Perfect List (1660), 51; C220/9/4, f. 82; C193/12/3, f. 96v; Besse, Collection of Sufferings, i. 673. When in May 1660 the great court of Ipswich made arrangements for gifts to be presented to the king to mark his restoration, Sicklemor was asked to accompany the delegation. The decision as to whether to present an address was left to him and the Bacons. That summer he was among those appointed by the corporation to draft letters of thanks to Sir Frederick Cornwallis* and Sir Henry Felton*, he was included on the committee to review possible changes to the town’s charter, and he was among burgesses named as attornies to examine the accounts of the Colchester corporation in connection with the bequest of John Hunwicke.49E. Anglian, n.s. vi. 264, 265, 316, 318-19. He was also involved in organizing the payments for the repairs to the county sessions house at Ipswich and the bridge at Sproughton.50Suff. RO (Ipswich), B105/2/5, ff. 86, 151v. On the death of Nathaniel Bacon in late August 1661, he became recorder of Ipswich. This provided some recompense for his dismissal as recorder of Harwich the previous year (to allow Grimston to be reinstated) and paved the way for his return by Ipswich to the 1661 Parliament.51E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 38-9, 79; Harwich bor. recs. 2/1. As before, he made a minimal impact in the Commons.52HP Commons, 1660-1690, iii. 433.

During his first 18 months as recorder of Ipswich, Sicklemor devoted much effort to the town militia, negotiating with the 3rd earl of Suffolk, the lord lieutenant of the county and, from September 1661 (as a means of gaining his favour) high steward of the town. He worked closely on this with Sir Henry Felton.53E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 40, 78, 91, 92, 123, 143, 155-6, 213. Another duty was to examine the manuscripts, including the ‘Annalls’ of the town, which had belonged to his predecessor. At Michaelmas 1662, the corporation declared themselves pleased with him. That same day they ordered him to entertain Bishop Reynolds of Norwich when he visited the town.54E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 92, 143-4, 153, 154; W. Kennett, Reg. and Chronicle Ecclesiastical and Civil (1728), 809. Two months later the town assembly left to him the real work involved in compounding for wine licences.55E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 156, 188-9, 213. By this time he must have taken the oaths required by the Corporation Act. Between April 1663 and February 1664 he was engaged in the renewal of the town’s charter, effort recognized by the town in a gift of £25, over and above his expenses of £73 15s 2d. Under the terms of the new charter he was re-sworn as recorder.56E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 214, 283, 302, 318, 326-7; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2672/8B-9. In 1665 he was among those delegated to persuade the garrison of Landguard Fort to prevent ships entering the Stour estuary, presumably as a precaution against the plague. Three years later, he was employed to convey the town’s concerns about the Dutch linen trade to the secretary of state.57E. Anglian, n.s. vii. 328, 3rd ser. viii. 124. As their recorder he regularly attended meetings of the corporation at Orford during the mid-1660s but in October 1669 he stepped down to allow Henry Parker† to succeed him.58Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE5/2/3, ff. 5, 7v, 10, 11v, 12v, 14, 15; HMC Var. iv. 269.

Meanwhile, he was probably still active as a lawyer in London. He retained lodgings at Gray’s Inn and became a bencher there in 1664 and a reader in 1668.59CSP Dom. 1664-5, pp. 353-4; PBG Inn, 449, 453, 458; Baker, Readers and Readings, 60, 251, 262; E. Anglian, 3rd ser. viii. 102. Perhaps he needed the money. Some of his lands at Tuddenham were mortgaged in 1662 and John Smithier of Ipswich took him to court in 1664 to recover a debt of £600. Smithier’s widow obtained a judgment in 1669 assigning her a moiety in Sicklemor’s lands at Tuddenham and Ipswich.60Fragmenta Geneal. x. 54, 56. The need to pay off these debts dominated Sicklemor’s will in March 1669. What was left after meeting these obligations and providing for his wife’s jointure was promised to his only surviving child, Mary.61Norf. RO, Consistory Court of Norfolk, 480 Alden. He died, still an MP, sometime in early 1670. He was certainly dead by 10 May, when the Ipswich corporation ordered that his widow was to be paid his salary up to the previous Ladyday, which seems to imply that he had died shortly before 25 March.62E. Anglian, 3rd ser. viii. 206; CJ ix. 158a. The Smithiers sold out their claim on the Sicklemor estates in 1679 and as late as 1702 the eventual heir to that claim, John Hooke of Orford, was still trying to gain redress.63Fragmenta Geneal. x. 56.