TICHBORNE (TITCHBORNE), White (c.1638-1700), of Frimley, Ash, Surr. and Aldershot, Hants.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1638, 1st s. of Francis Tichborne, merchant, of London and Frimley by Susanna, da. of William Hawes, merchant, of Brumley Hall, Essex. educ. Winchester 1652, aged 14. m. (1) 15 June 1665, Elizabeth (bur. 21 Apr. 1666), da. of John Shudd, yeoman, of Thursley, Surr., s.p.; (2) lic. 27 Apr. 1668, Anne (bur. 14 Oct. 1684), da. and h. of James Supple of Westminster, 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1671.1

Offices Held

Capt. of militia, Hants 1661-bef. 1679; commr. for assessment, Hants and Surr. 1673-80, 1689-90, recusants, Hants 1675; dep. lt. Surr. by 1680-Feb. 1688, Oct. 1688-?d.; j.p. Surr. 1680-Feb. 1688, Nov. 1688-d., Hants 1680-Apr. 1688, 1689-d.2

Biography

Tichborne’s ancestors had held the Hampshire estate from which they derived their name since the reign of Henry II, and first represented the county in 1316. His grandfather, a younger son of the first baronet, acquired three manors on the Hampshire-Surrey border through a marriage to an heiress of the Whites. Tichborne’s father was a merchant before inheriting the estate, and Tichborne himself gave up a Winchester scholarship to be apprenticed to a London Skinner in 1655. But he was proposed as knight of the Royal Oak at the Restoration, with an annual income, presumably in expectation, of £1,000. His second marriage, to the daughter of a property developer, must have increased his wealth. It was proposed to quarry stone from his Frimley estate for the repair of Windsor Castle, but nothing further is known of this project.3

Tichborne, a staunch Anglican, doubtless opposed exclusion, becoming a j.p. in 1680, and signing (together with Sir William More) a warrant for levying fines on conventiclers in 1683. To the questions of the lord lieutenant of Hampshire on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws he replied by letter that, ‘living in Surrey, where all his concerns lie, he gave his answer to the Duke of Norfolk’. It was concluded that he would not consent, and he was removed from local office.4

Tichborne was returned for Haslemere as a Tory at the general election of 1689. According to Anthony Rowe he voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant. On 20 Mar. he was given leave to go into the country, ‘his only daughter lying a-dying’, though she was still alive eleven years later. An inactive Member of the Convention, he was appointed only to four minor committees in the second session, those to receive proposals for raising money on forfeited Irish estates, to enquire into abuses in the pressing of seamen, to recommend Irish refugees to the King’s bounty, and to consider a bill permitting surgeons to administer physic to their patients. He is not known to have stood again, and from 1698 doubtless gave his interest to (Sir) Theophilus Oglethorpe, one of his trustees. In his will he left modest bequests of £500 each to his younger son and a granddaughter. He declared that ‘I trust and believe assuredly to be saved and to have full remission and forgiveness for my sins’. He was buried according to his instructions at Frimley on 20 Aug. 1700 ‘without pomp or vain ceremony, that what may be saved thereby may be given to refresh the bowels of the poor’. His son James stood unsuccessfully for Haslemere in 1702, and his grandson succeeded both to the baronetcy and the principal family estate; but no later member of the family entered Parliament.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: J. S. Crossette

Notes

  • 1. Berry, Hants Peds. 31-32; Foster, London Mar. Lic. 1342.
  • 2. Cal. Treas. Bks. i. 286.
  • 3. VCH Hants. iii. 337; iv. 3; VCH Surr. iii. 342; Misc. Gen. et. Her. (ser. 3), i. 251; Survey of London, xxi. 44; CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 542.
  • 4. CSP Dom. 1679-80, p. 363; HMC 7th Rep. 680.
  • 5. PCC 146 Noel; Berry, 31.