The Wolryche family acquired an 800-acre estate at Dudmaston by marriage at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and provided an MP for Bridgnorth, three miles to the north, in 1435. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign they owned 4,500 acres, chiefly in south-eastern Shropshire but including the manor of Wroxeter near Shrewsbury. The family’s elevation to county status was sealed by a match between Francis Wolryche and a niece of the late lord chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley†, in 1597.
Orphaned in 1614 at the age of 16, Wolryche’s wardship was bought by his mother and her brother, the Exchequer baron Sir Edward Bromley*, who secured his admission to the Inner Temple in the following year. Under the terms of his father’s will, Wolryche’s uncles Bromley and Roger Puleston* were made trustees of his estates to pay off his father’s debts, being empowered to retain possession of the lands until Wolryche turned 30 if the debts could not be cleared earlier. The most intractable of these liabilities was a mortgage upon the estates of Wolryche’s recusant cousins, the Gatacres. Francis Wolryche had guaranteed their debts of £1,740 in 1611, and was granted possession of the 1,400-acre manor of Hughley under a mortgage as security for his undertaking. In 1623 Thomas Wolryche and Bromley undertook to clear this debt in return for the freehold of the manor, an offer which was apparently accepted.
The acquisition of Hughley brought Wolryche not only a useful estate, but also an opportunity to participate in the politics of the nearby borough of Wenlock, where Bromley served as recorder from 1607. The parliamentary interest was shared between the landed families of the ex-monastic liberty: in 1614 the borough had returned Rowland Lacon as one of its MPs on the strength of his father’s ownership of the manor of Willey; but the family’s sale of this estate in 1618 left room for a fresh interest at the next election in January 1621. It was presumably Bromley who capitalized upon his position as recorder to push the interests of his nephew, who was made a freeman on the same day as his election.
Wolryche’s parliamentary service ended in 1626, when he was replaced by another local man, Francis Smalman II. This return was signed by the usual mixture of gentry and townsmen, and there is no obvious evidence of a contest, which suggests that Bromley, who died only six months later, simply chose not to renew his nephew’s nomination. Wolryche made his last appearance in the borough records only a few months later, at the election of Bromley’s successor, and it is unlikely that he subsequently applied to the corporation for a parliamentary seat.
By the time of the Civil War Wolryche had some military experience as captain of the county militia company based in the Bridgnorth area. He was thus an obvious choice as a commissioner of array, and served on the grand jury which drafted a loyal address to the king at the summer assizes of 1642.
In his final will of 12 May 1657, Wolryche assigned his estates to Pierrepont and his third son, William, to pay off his debts, assigned life annuities to his six younger sons and portions of 1,000 marks each to his two daughters. A codicil of 2 Feb. 1663 reassigned the trust for payment of his debts to his wife and two of his younger sons, but while these meticulous preparations suggest ill health, he did not actually die until 4 July 1668. Having been predeceased by his eldest son, a lunatic, he chose to settle his estates upon his fifth son John, who secured a private Act of Parliament confirming his inheritance in 1673, and was later to sit for Wenlock in the second and third Exclusion parliaments.