Family and Education

b. 16 Mar. 1635, 3rd s. of John Gould (d.1644) of Upwey by Sarah, da. of William Every of Cothays, Som. m. 9 Jan. 1677, Elizabeth, da. of Benjamin Bale of Seaborough, Som., 2s. (1 d.v.p.) 3da.2

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Dorset 1679-80, 1690; mayor, Dorchester 1680-1; j.p. Dorset June 1688-9.3

Biography

Gould’s father, the elder brother of James Gould I, was probably the ‘Captain Gold’ of the Dorset militia who tried to rally his men against the Cavaliers in 1642. Gould himself became a London merchant, though he signed the loyal address from Dorset at the Restoration. He acquired a small property in Upwey, four miles from Dorchester, in 1678, and in the following year succeeded his cousin James Gould II in the representation of the borough. Marked ‘honest’ on Shaftesbury’s list, he was moderately active in the first Exclusion Parliament, though none of his six committees was of much political importance. He helped to consider measures to assist the cloth trade and reform the Post Office, and to investigate complaints against the customs. He voted for the first exclusion bill. In the succeeding Parliament he was totally inactive, perhaps because of his mayoral duties in Dorchester, and in 1681 he was returning officer for the borough. He was described as a dissenter in 1688, when James II’s electoral agents accepted him as court candidate for Dorchester; but he failed to find a seat in the Convention. He was elected at Weymouth in 1690, but died in the following year. His sons died young, and the property (valued at a mere £1,200) eventually passed to his nephew and son-in-law, John Gould, who bought out Paul Methuen^†, husband of the other coheir.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes

• 1. New writ.
• 2. Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 842; Dorset Nat. Hist. and Antiq. Soc. Proc. liii. 130, 142.
• 3. Hutchins, ii. 354.
• 4. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 354; A. R. Bayley, Civil War in Dorset, 49; Dorset Soc. Proc. liii. 115, 130, 137, 142.