Thomas Mackworth (1627–1696) of Betton Strange was an English politician of Shropshire landed gentry background. After limited military service on the Parliamentarian side in the Third English Civil War, he represented Shropshire in the House of Commons from 1656 to 1659 during the Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments.
Background and early life
Thomas Mackworth was the eldest son of Humphrey Mackworth of Betton Strange, just south of Shrewsbury. The Mackworths' origins lay in Mackworth, near Derby,Blakeway, p. 390. and were related to the Mackworth baronets, originally of Mackworth Castle although they moved to Normanton, Rutland in the 17th century. Humphrey's junior branch of the family had held Betton Strange, a manor a few miles south of the town, since 1544Blakeway, p. 391. and were deeply involved in the politics and commerce of Shrewsbury. Anne Waller, Mackworth's first wife, who had married him by May 1624. She was the daughter of Thomas Waller of Beaconsfield, who seems to have been the owner of the estate known as Gregory's Manor or Butler's Court in the early 17th century.Victoria County History: Buckinghamshire: Beaconsfield parish Gregory's Manor alias Butler's Court She was related to the poet Edmund Waller, who belonged to another branch of the family in Beaconsfield. However, the Waller's originated in KentVictorian County History: Buckinghamshire: Beaconsfield parish Manors so the Parliamentarian general William Waller was a very distant kinsman.
It is unlikely that Thomas Mackworth was born at Betton Strange. St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, was the parish church which covered the areaRegister of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, volume 1, p. v. and his christening is not included in its parish register. His year of birth is generally given as 1627,Blakeway, p. 393. although ODNB raises a very slight doubt by giving it as c.1628. Owen and Blakeway's 1825 History of Shrewsbury includes an abstract from an earlier manuscript listing monuments in the old churchyard: important, as the church fell down in 1788 and was replaced by a building on a new site. The monument to Thomas Mackworth and his wife apparently recorded that he was in his 70th year when he died in 1696,Owen and Blakeway, Volume 2, p. 241. tending to validate 1627 as his birth year. His brother, Humphrey Mackworth, was born in 1631Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, volume 1, p. 77. and the first of three sisters, Anne, in 1632Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, volume 1, p. 86. Their mother died in 1636 and was buried at St Chad's on 26 May. Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, volume 1, p. 109. Humphrey Mackworth subsequently married and had further children by Mary Venables, the daughter of Thomas Venables of Kinderton in Cheshire.
Thomas Mackworth's childhood and youth were shaped throughout by his father's developing career and commitments. At the time of Thomas's birth, Humphrey Mackworth was a young Gray's Inn lawyer, working in London, although he moved back and began to represent the town of Shrewsbury as his family grew, attaining the rank of alderman in 1633. The family was by this time noted as Puritan: in autumn of the same year Humphrey Mackworth was one of twenty family heads who were denounced during a canonical visitation as "wilful refusers to communicate for the gestures sake."Coulton, p. 85. because they persistently refused to bow at the name of Jesus or to kneel at the altar rail.
Education
Thomas Mackworth's education shadowed his father's: Shrewsbury School, the University of Cambridge and Gray's Inn. He was admitted to Shrewsbury School, then a noted centre of Calvinist and humanistic education, in 1638. He matriculated as a pensioner or fee-paying student at St Catharine's College, Cambridge at Michaelmas 1642. He was admitted at Gray's Inn, on 6 February 1645Foster, Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, p. 239, folio 1007. and was awarded BA at Cambridge in 1646.
The Civil War and Commonwealth
Mackworth's further education coincided with the early and, for his family, critical phases of the English Civil War. Humphrey Mackworth was a Parliamentarian from the outset. However, Shrewsbury and most of its county fell into royalist hands and Charles I occupied Shrewsbury with his field army from 20 September 1642.Coulton, p. 91-2. At Bridgnorth on 14 October the king issued a royal proclamation threatening with prosecution for high treason Shropshire gentry who had criticised his government: Humphrey Mackworth was one of only three who were named.Coulton, p. 94. Thomas must have moved to university in safely-Parliamentarian Cambridge very soon after the family's flight and the sequestration of their home and estates by the royalists. The records of Thomas's admission to Cambridge and to Gray's Inn both describe him as the son of Humphrey Mackworth of Coventry, where Mackworth senior was employed by the city corporation as steward, so it is likely that this was the family home during these years. It was from Coventry that Parliament's reconquest of the West Midlands was launched, with a series of county committees slowly establishing themselves and federating to provide the framework for a provisional government: the Shropshire committee gained an initial foothold at Wem in the autumn of 1643.Coulton, p. 95-6. By the time Thomas Mackworth was entering Gray's Inn in February 1645, his father and the committee were already involved in plans for the taking of Shrewsbury, an aim they achieved on 21 February 1645.Coulton, p. 102-3. Humphrey Mackworth was acclaimed governor by his committee colleagues, in preference to Thomas Mytton, the successful commander who had been governor of Wem.Coulton, p. 105.
Thomas seems to given his father some assistance during the years of his governorship. When Shrewsbury was fortified against the army of Charles II of Scotland in August 1651, Thomas was in charge of a detachment of soldiers in the garrison.Coulton, p. 115. He is also known to have helped during 1650–52 in the appointment of Francis Tallents as minister at Mary's church in Shrewsbury, pressing for £50 in London to supplement the £150 salary available in Shrewsbury.Coulton, p. 117-8. This suggests that up to this point he was still fairly closely engaged and well connected in the capital. The situation must have changed, as it had with his father, with marriage and the growth of his family. He married Anne Bulkeley, from a Shropshire gentry family, and their first son, named Bulkeley after his mother's family, was born on 14 December 1653 and baptised at Chad's church a fortnight later.Register of St Chad's, Shrewsbury, volume 1, p. 243. From this point he was closely involved in the government of his native county.
The Protectorate
Local government and justice Thomas Mackworth's first recorded appearance as a justice of the peace in Shropshire, alongside his father, was at the quarter sessions of 10 January 1654.Wakeman (ed), Orders of the Quarter Sessions, p. 9-12. The cases considered were fairly typical of the time and included local government matters as well as poor relief, the administration of justice and moral policing. It is possible his debut indicated that Humphrey Mackworth knew that he was to be nominated a member of the Protector's Council the following. Mackworth senior was heavily committed in London from that point and perhaps relied on Thomas to represent him. Thomas appeared on the bench at the next sessions, on 4 April Wakeman (ed), Orders of the Quarter Sessions, p. 12-14. He was not listed as present for the sessions of 11 July. Nevertheless, the magistrates referred to him and Robert Corbet the case of a widow requesting poor relief and appointed him a commissioner of the house of correction, so he was now regarded as an active local justice of the peace. He heads the list of justices at the 3 October 1654 sessions, traditionally linked with Michaelmas but in the record for this year, apparently wrongly, with St. Martin's Day.Wakeman (ed), Orders of the Quarter Sessions, p. 16-17. It was at this session that the justices decided to take a firm line over money owed for the rebuilding of Stokesay parish church, resulting in the construction of one of the very few parish churches in the country dating from the Commonwealth or Protectorate periods. Mackworth missed the Epiphany sessions of 1655,Wakeman (ed), Orders of the Quarter Sessions, p. 18. which were held soon after his father's funeral in Westminster Abbey. Humphrey Mackworth senior's death must have been unexpected and he died intestate, probably preoccupying Thomas Mackworth, the heir, in administrative complications and family difficulties. However, for the remaining three quarter sessions of the year both Thomas and his younger brother Humphrey appeared on the bench. Both seem to have remained active even when unable to attend. For example, Thomas was not on the bench at Easter 1657 but those present acted on an order he had issued under the Poor Law.Wakeman (ed), Orders of the Quarter Sessions, p. 42-3.
Member of Parliament In 1656, Mackworth was elected Member of Parliament for Shropshire for the Second Protectorate Parliament.Notitia Parliamentaria, p. 277. at Internet Archive. This was elected under the Instrument of Government, like the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654–5, and was similarly intended to legitimise the rule of Oliver Cromwell. The election results were more favourable to the government on the second attempt, as senior military figures worked hard to vet candidates and to encourage sympathetic electors.Roots, p. 217-8. As before, this was a unicameral legislature in which all representatives had to meet a £200 property qualification, and the seats were redistributed according to a system that removed some of the small borough seats and gave four, instead of two, to the counties.Roots, p. 201-2. Thomas's brother, Humphrey, now addressed as Colonel, represented Shrewsbury in the same parliament and it is not always easy to distinguish them in the parliamentary record. Neither was very prominent. However, it was Mr Mackworth who was appointed to an important committee on an Act for the Security of the Protector's Person on 26 September.House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 26 September 1656 It may have been his experience of intestacy, as well as his legal training, that obtained him a place on a committee to discuss an Act for the Probate of Wills a month later.House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 27 October 1656 In November he was deputed to help consider the case of John Cole,House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 22 November 1656 a case concerning contract and debt that had simmered since 1640 and was to consume a considerable amount of parliamentary time in future. Not until June 1658 did he appear again in the record, as one appointed to a committee on a bill concerning recusants.House of Commons Journal Volume 7:1 June 1657 He seems to have become gradually more involved in the parliamentary process, acting as teller in a number of divisions of the House. One of these was in relation to a Bill for Preventing Multiplicity of Buildings, which was intended to tackle a serious shortage of housing by preventing wealthy householders annexing neighbouring properties to their own.House of Commons Journal Volume 7:20 June 1657