MORE (MOORE), John I (c.1561-1620), of North Baddesley, Hants and Lincoln’s Inn, London; later of Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet Street, London

More’s father prospered sufficiently to give his son a legal education and take out a grant of arms for himself in 1590. Harl. 1422, f. 13; Symonds Diary ed. C.E. Long (Cam. Soc. lxxiv), 128. More himself purchased North Baddesley in 1603 from Sir Thomas Fleming I*, his predecessor as recorder of Winchester, and was returned for the city in the following year. VCH Hants, iii. 464; Baigent and Millard, 489. The records of the first Stuart Parliament do not always distinguish him from his fellow-lawyer Francis Moore, though the latter was by far the more active in the Commons. More’s first two committees were for bills to regulate release from imprisonment (31 Mar. 1604) and to restore the 3rd earl of Southampton (2 April). CJ, i. 160b, 162a. He was named on 20 Apr. to attend a conference with the Lords on the proposed Union with Scotland. Ibid. 180a. His other committees in the first session included bills to relieve creditors frustrated by parliamentary privilege (21 Apr.), to regulate legal costs (9 May), and to prohibit usury (9 May). Ibid. 181a, 204a, b.

As recorder, More welcomed James to Winchester in 1605, terming him ‘our Levi’ who would confer ‘celestial blessings and all earthly benefits’ now that ‘scant, palefaced penury is banished’. He reminded the king of the decayed state of Winchester, whose liberties he asked him to preserve and restore, and presented him with a cup. Harl. 852, f. 5. His only committee in the second session was for a bill to enforce the sale of the lands of a Hampshire squire, William Waller of Stoke Charity (27 Feb. 1606). CJ, i. 275a. The first mention of him in the third session is on 3 Mar. 1607, when he was reported to have departed without leave to ride the circuit. Ibid. 346b. He had probably returned three days later, without any recorded apology, when he was named to the committee for the revived Waller land bill. Ibid. 349a. In the fourth session he was ordered to consider a bill to regulate the use of commons (19 Feb. 1610), and was named as ‘Sir John Moore’ to the committee for a private bill of one Mr Davison (27 March). Ibid. 396b, 415a. There is no trace of More in the records of the brief fifth session.

More does not seem to have stood again, no doubt preferring to concentrate on his legal practice, which earned him a serjeantcy in 1614. Order of Sjts.-at-Law ed. J.H. Baker (Selden Soc. suppl. ser. v), 527. In religion he probably shared the moderate puritanism of Thomas Gataker, chaplain of his inn, who dedicated a work to him. T. Gataker, Of the Nature and Use of Lots (1619), STC 11670. He was ill when he drew up his will on 5 Aug. 1620, and died on circuit ten days later. He was buried at North Baddesley. C142/382/30; J. Marsh, Mems. Hursley and North Baddesley, 15, 26-27. He left his elder daughter, married to Samuel Dunch*, only a token legacy of plate, but the younger received £100 p.a. and a portion of £1,600. PROB 11/136, f. 216v. William Noye* was among the trustees appointed during the minority of More’s only surviving son, but when the latter died of smallpox a year later More’s daughters partitioned the estate, commemorating their father and brother with a fine monument. C142/389/121; Marsh, 26-7.