BRAND, Joseph (c.1605-74), of Tower Street, London and Edwardstone, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

3 May 1660

Family and Education

b. c.1605, 2nd s. of John Brand of Edwardstone by Susan, da. and coh. of Thomas Lappage of Boxford. m. by 1632, Thomasine, da. and coh. of Thomas Trotter, merchant, of London, 5s. (2 d.v.p.) 7da. suc. fa. in Suff. estate 1642.1

Offices Held

Member, Salters’ Co. by 1632; elder, Lavenham classis 1645; commr. for assessment, Suff. 1649, Aug. 1660-d.; alderman, London Mar.-Apr. 1650; j.p. Suff. 1650-70, commr. for scandalous ministers 1654, militia 1659, Mar. 1660, sheriff 1662-3.2

Biography

Brand was the grandson of a local clothier who acquired Edwardstone, five miles from Sudbury, towards the close of the 16th century. A younger son, he became a London merchant, but he seems to have been only moderately successful in trade. In 1641 he was included among those of the fourth grade of ‘ability’ in the Tower ward. In the following year he succeeded to his father’s Suffolk estate, but he took no active part in the Civil War. Assessed at £600 at Haberdashers’ Hall in 1664, he asserted that he had already lent £130, besides loans and contributions to the value of £1,000, and the committee declared themselves satisfied with a further £100 to be paid within four days. He made another advance on the security of the bishops’ lands in 1647, which together with interest was valued at £564 5s.4d. at the Restoration. He probably retired about this time to Suffolk, where he became a Presbyterian elder and served as a j.p. throughout the Interregnum. Elected as alderman of London in March 1660, he preferred to pay the £600 fine.3

Brand stood for Sudbury with another Presbyterian, John Gurdon, at the general election of 1660. There was a double return, but they were seated on the merits of the return on 3 May and declared duly elected a fortnight later. He was one of the five Members headed by John Frederick who were directed to raise an immediate loan of £2,000 in the City on 25 May, and, finding difficulties, provided the money themselves, for which they were formally thanked by the House. His only committee was on the bill for settling ministers in their livings (30 July). Probably a court supporter, he was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak, with an income of £1,000 p.a. But he retained some nonconformist sympathies and was removed from the county bench after the second Conventicles Act of 1670. ‘A pious, prudent, charitable person’, he died on 9 Oct. 1674, aged 69, and was buried at Edwardstone. His son, who was knighted in 1681, was presumably a Tory; but no other member of this family sat in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. M. I. Edwardstone; Vis. Suff. (Harl. Soc. lxi), 154; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 357; T. C. Dale, Inhabitants of London, 49; St. Dunstan in the East (Harl. Soc. Reg. lxix), 79, 200, 210; PCC 34 Lowe, 31 Audley, 27 Bunce.
  • 2. Beaven, Aldermen, ii. 73; County of Suff. Divided (1647), 13.
  • 3. Copinger, Suff. Manors, i. 102; Misc. Gen. et Her. (ser. 2), ii. 105; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 380; CJ, viii. 241.
  • 4. CJ, viii. 45; M. I. Edwardstone.