Family and Education

bap. 18 Oct. 1627, 2nd surv. s. of Samuel More^† of Linley, being 1st s. by 2nd w. Elizabeth Worsley of Deeping Gate, Maxey, Northants. educ. G. Inn 1646. m. 1659, Anne, da. of Isaac Pennington, Fishmonger, of Wood Street, London, ld. mayor 1642-4, s.p.; 2s. illegit. by Dorcas Owen. suc. fa. 1662.1

Offices Held

Commr. for compounding 1650-9, indemnity 1652-4; member, high court of justice 1653; commr. for sequestrations 1654-9.2

Bailiff, Bishop’s Castle 1658-61, 1679-80, commr. for militia, London Jan. 1660; j.p. Salop 1665-87, June 1688-?d., commr. for assessment 1673-80, 1689-90.3

Biography

More’s family had held land in Corvedale since the 14th century. In Stuart times they were remarkable for their strongly Puritan views. More’s grandfather had property in Bishop’s Castle, three miles from Linley, served on the corporation from 1610 and represented the borough in the Short and Long Parliaments. His father, who was returned for the county in 1656 and the borough in 1659, had a distinguished military record in the first Civil War, which presumably earned for More a seat on the compounding commission throughout the Interregnum, though the family opposed the Protectorate and he himself was described as a time-server on the eve of the Restoration. He succeeded to the estate because his father, suspecting their paternity, had sent his first wife’s children to New England on the Mayflower. His own marriage to a regicide’s daughter was similarly disastrous.4

More served as returning officer for Bishop’s Castle in both elections of 1679 and resisted strong pressure from (Sir) Edward Harley to stand himself. But in 1681 he replaced a court supporter as junior Member. He was probably an exclusionist, but left no trace on the records of the Oxford Parliament. He is not known to have stood in 1685, and in 1687 he was removed from the commission of the peace. Presumably he gave satisfaction to James II on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, for he was restored in the summer of 1688. But at the Revolution he summoned Shrewsbury to surrender to William of Orange, and regained his seat at the general election of 1689, becoming a moderately active Member of the Convention. He is not recorded as speaking, but he was appointed to 29 committees, including those to inspect the accounts of the late treasury solicitors, to reverse the attainders of Cornish and Walcot, and to restore corporations. He did not vote for the disabling clause, but was named to the committee for the general oath of allegiance. In his only other Parliament he appears to have been a court Whig, signing the Association in 1696. He was buried at More on 7 July 1698 and the estate passed to his brother. His nephew Robert sat as a Whig for Bishop’s Castle 1727-41 and Shrewsbury 1754-61.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Information from Mr Jasper More; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), xi. 182-3; More Par. Reg. (Salop Par. Reg. Soc.) 17.
• 2. G. E. Aylmer, State’s Servants, 213-14.
• 3. Bishop’s Castle: List of Mayors.
• 4. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 364-6; Keeler, Long Parl. 279; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), vii. 134; (ser. 4), xi. 182-3; D. Brewster, William Brewster of the Mayflower, 96-101.
• 5. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), vii. 123; Add. 29910, f. 141; More Par. Reg. 44.