MOORE, Edward (c.1575-1632), of Bank Hall, Liverpool, Lancs.

The Moores of Bank Hall were the principal landholders in Liverpool from the thirteenth century, owning many burgages and large parts of the town field, which they progressively enclosed; they also operated the royal horse mill. Stewart-Brown, 92-119; HMC 10th Rep. iv. 60-146; Chandler, Liverpool under Jas. I, 24, 124-6. Several of Moore’s forebears served the earls of Derby as stewards or receivers of the Stanley estates; one, in the distant past, was fabled to have slain the dragon of Wantley. Anon., A true relation of the dreadful combat between More of More Hall and the Dragon of Wantley (1685); M. Gregson, Fragments relating to Hist. and Antiqs. of Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, 164-5. In the seventeenth century the family gained a reputation for puritanism. Moore himself organized the relief of a serious plague outbreak at Liverpool in 1609. Liverpool RO, 920 MOO 288, 289; HMC Westmorland, 62. He improved the keeping of the town’s records, and spearheaded attempts to renew Liverpool’s charters; his election as mayor in 1604 has been described as ‘a symbol of the borough’s desire to preserve and extend its powers’. Chandler, Liverpool under Jas. I, 24, 35. In 1617 he volunteered to raise £40 for the charter, to which he contributed at the highest rate of 18s. Ibid. 195, 200.

Moore’s election to Parliament in 1625 perhaps signalled an intention that while at Westminster he could petition the new king to renew Liverpool’s charter. In the Commons, he was named to the committee for the Macclesfield tenants’ bill on 23 June, attending both its meetings, C.R. Kyle, ‘Attendance Lists’, PPE 1604-48 ed. Kyle, 228. and to a committee ‘to digest and frame certain articles and heads by petition or otherwise concerning religion’, on 24 June. Procs. 1625, p. 241. His hatred of Catholics is apparent from his contribution to the recusancy debate of 25 June. He provided evidence of the positive impact of fines, claiming that in four Lancashire parishes 400 recusants were ‘reformed by the 12d. a Sunday, and £80 collected for the poor’. However, he also noted the insolence of many recusants. When Sir Edwin Sandys complained of the increase of Jesuits, Moore observed that ‘in Lancashire sixty of them joined together and beat the sheriff coming to levy the 12d. for absence from church ... one Tarren a priest used to ride up and down with six men, and, when their armour has been taken, letters have been procured to deliver it again’. Ibid. 231, 239, 246. Moore’s zeal in prosecuting non-attendance was noticed, and in 1629 he became a member of the national recusancy commission. His first-hand experience of troublesome recusants is well documented in the case of his quarrel with Sir William Norris of Speke, a notorious Catholic whom the Council suspected of sending aid to the archduchess. CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 304; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 428. In 1629, when Moore attempted to impose fines and confiscate his arms, Norris drew his sword and struck Moore twice, for which he was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £50 damages. Chandler, Liverpool under Chas. I, 16; Harvard Law Lib. ms 1101, f. 25v; Lancs. and Cheshire Fun. Certs. 56-7; VCH Lancs. iii. 136. Two further defendants were also penalized in Star Chamber for publishing scurrilous libels against Moore and his family. Historical Collections ed. J. Rushworth, iii. app. 35; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 80.

Moore died suddenly of ‘a palsy’ at Stone in Staffordshire, while en route from London to Liverpool in November 1632. Walton on the Hill Par. Reg. (Lancs. Par. Reg. Soc. v), 130; Lancs. and Cheshire Fun. Certs. 56-7. No will has been found, though his legacies resulted in a dispute between his widow and eldest son, John. Liverpool RO, 920 MOO 306. An extensive inventory of his goods compiled after his death valued his possessions at £1,036 1s. 10d. Lancs. RO, WCW, Edward Moore, inventory, 1632; D. Ashmore, ‘Household Inventories of the Lancs. Gentry, 1550-1700’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Lancs. and Cheshire, cx. 59-105; C.B. Phillips and J.H. Smith, Lancs. and Cheshire from AD 1540, p. 14. John Moore, who sat for Liverpool in 1640, served as a colonel in the parliamentarian army, and signed the death warrant of Charles I.