TURGIS, Thomas (1623-1704), of St Dionis Backchurch, London, and Lower Gatton, Surr.

Turgis’s grandfather, Thomas Turgis of Petworth, Sussex, who served as mayor of Chichester, had links with the Isle of Wight and established his sons in the London mercantile community. The MP’s father, also Thomas, made his way as a Grocer and perpetuated family ties by marrying first Ebbot Urry from the Island and then Mary Dyos (d.1639), daughter of a London Ironmonger.20Vis. London, 139-40. In April 1648 he was appointed a commissioner for the arrears of assessment in London.21A. and O. In his will, drawn up on 16 May 1649 and containing a wide range of bequests, this man mentioned among many others the moderate royalist Sir John Oglander of Nunwell, named one of the distributors of his beneficence on the Isle of Wight, and William Leman (almost certainly the Fishmonger and Rumper William Leman*) and the active Presbyterian Dr Edward Alston, both trustees for his elder daughter, Sarah Langham. The text prescribed for the funeral sermon, to be preached by the preacher at St Dionis Backchurch, the exceptionally-sanctioned Prayer Book loyalist Nathaniel Hardy, was quoted: ‘the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee’.22PROB11/216/62; ‘Alston, Sir Edward’, ‘Hardy, Nathaniel’ and ‘Oglander, Sir John’, Oxford DNB; Coventry Docquets, 650.

Initially apprenticed to his father, the future MP also rose through the Grocers’ Company and in time became known as ‘one of the richest commoners in England’.23Woodhead, Rulers of London, 165. Continuing his father’s property acquisitions in the south east, which had included the manor of Effingham, Surrey, in 1654 he finalised his purchase of the manor of Gatton in the same county.24VCH Surr. iii. 198, 323. This may have coincided with his marriage to Mary, daughter and eventual heir of William Beake (?d.1668), Merchant Taylor. William Turgis, son of Thomas Turgis ‘esquire’, buried at St Dionis on 21 December 1655, was presumably their son. The couple went on to have at least two more sons, both named Thomas, of whom the former was baptised and buried in 1659.25Vis. London, 77, 140; Reg. of St Dionis Backchurch, 229, 231. Meanwhile, in 1657 Turgis was named as a commissioner for sewers in Middlesex.26C181/6, p. 202.

The purchase of Gatton gave Turgis a powerful and long-lasting interest in the parliamentary borough. However, at the polls in January 1659 he encountered a robust opponent in the form of another newcomer to Surrey with links to the Merchant Taylors, Major Lewis Audley*, clerk of the ordnance. A vocal radical in the second protectorate Parliament, as a Member for Surrey, Audley was dissatisfied when the sheriff returned Turgis and Edward Bysshe II*. Presenting himself at Westminster on 27 January to register a complaint, he encountered the successful candidates coming to take their seats, and an altercation ensued. Probably seizing the opportunity to prosecute their own agenda against the army, the next day Richard Knightley*, William Bulkeley* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige* took up the case as an alleged breach of privilege against Turgis and Bysshe.27CJ vii. 595a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 15n. When Audley appeared under custody at the bar on 2 February, the Speaker put it to him that he had insulted Bysshe and in effect challenged him to a duel, while ‘he had likewise abused Mr Turgis with like contumelious and opprobrious language; and had called him base fellow’.28CJ vii. 597a. In reply, Audley, whose chief target seems to have been Bysshe, admitted that he had met Turgis ‘at the Sign of the Leg in Palace Yard’ and had asked him ‘how long he had taken a lease of his sitting in the House, because he meant to question it’, but denied that there was ‘uncivil language, or other than might become a gentleman, between them’.29CJ vii. 597a. However, witnesses claimed that they had heard Audley call Turgis ‘a base stinking fellow and a shit-breech’, a testimony which was believed: for this and his conduct towards Bysshe, Audley was committed to the Tower.30CJ vii. 597b. Yet five days later, satisfied that their election had been upheld and probably confident of getting at Audley and the army by other means, both Bysshe and Turgis were willing to speak up for their antagonist’s release.31Burton’s Diary, iii. 86n.

Turgis’s motion for Audley’s release was his only recorded contribution to the proceedings of this Parliament. Subsequently he was returned to 12 consecutive Parliaments, always for the Gatton seat. It has been suggested that his younger son Thomas was elected in 1679, but this has not been substantiated, and the son certainly predeceased his father.32Manning and Bray, Surr. ii. 231; VCH Surr. iii. 198; Vis. London, 140; HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715. In his will, made in January 1704, Turgis divided his estates among several collateral male heirs; Lower Gatton and other Surrey properties went to the sons of George Newland†, who sprang from his Isle of Wight kin.33PROB11/481/249. Newland sat in Parliament for Gatton from 1705 until the principal beneficiary, his son William Newland†, came of age.34HP Commons 1690-1715.