CHILD, John (1625-86), of London and Portsmouth, Hants

The Child family’s origins are somewhat obscure, although a branch was noted in the 1634 visitation of London and there were Childs in Hampshire in the early seventeenth century, most notably Thomas Child, an alderman and commissioner for gaol delivery in Winchester before his death in 1631.12Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), 159; Hants RO, 20M67/125; C181/3, ff. 47v, 242; PROB11/159/189. By the time John Child was baptized at St Mary Abchurch on 13 February 1625, his father Richard, a citizen and Weaver, was becoming established in the London mercantile community and beyond.13GL, MS 7666, f. 63v. His mother, Elizabeth ‘Roycroft’ was said to have originated in what was probably Winstanwick, Shropshire, but she was a close kinswoman, and plausibly a sister, of James Rycroft of St Dunstan, Stepney, who about 1638 described himself in a petition as ‘late pilot and factor of the Elizabeth of London’.14SP16/408, f. 178. James’s son Josiah Ricroft, who also became a merchant in Stepney, and who witnessed a final codicil to Richard Child’s will in May 1639, emerged in the 1640s as a prominent Presbyterian controversialist.15PROB11/180/269; ‘Josiah Ricraft’, Oxford DNB. The will indicated, in its provision for ministers and for the poor in Andover, Hampshire, a pious family circle, and also revealed friends and family across southern England: a brother, Thomas Child, in Salisbury, Wiltshire; the children of Mr Burt of Exeter (deceased); Mr William ‘Jervas’ or Jervoise and Mr William Cooper of Andover.16PROB11/180/269.

The nature of John Child’s inheritance as eldest son does not appear, but it is almost certain to have been greater in value than were the recently-purchased 112 acres in Essex given to his younger brother Josiah Child*.17PROB11/180/269. He may well have been the John Child, son of Richard Child, citizen and deceased, who was apprenticed for eight years from February 1641 to Jeremiah Tawlke, Clothworker, but who became a freeman in 1647.18Recs. of London’s Livery Cos. Online. Otherwise, John’s early career is a mystery. He is not to be confused with John Child (d. 1690), president of the council of the East India Company, who was awarded a baronetcy in 1685, although there may well have been some family connection.19CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 294; CB. Equally, he is to be distinguished from Major John Child (d. 1657) of Northfleet, Kent, a parliamentarian soldier who served in that county in the mid-1640s, but who spent some time in detention between 1651 and 1656, for reasons unknown.20CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 406-7; 1651, pp. 208, 211; 1655-6, p. 94; PROB11/275/2.

It seems likely that, like the Rycrofts, our MP had business interests as a shipowner and merchant around the south coast some time before his marriage in January 1654 to Elizabeth Rumbriger of the parish of St Thomas, Portsmouth.21St Thomas, Portsmouth, par. reg. Eleven months later his brother Josiah married another Portsmouth woman – one of the daughters of its late MP, shipbuilder Edward Boate*.22CB; Portsmouth RO, CHU 2/1A/1, unfol. By May 1656 the elder brother (often styled Captain John Child) was contracted to supply thousands of pounds worth of canvas from France to the admiralty commissioners for the use of the navy; this he proceeded to ship to Portsmouth from St Malo, although he was scarcely able to meet the high demand. 23CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 335, 554, 557; 1656-7, pp. 169, 183, 400, 430, 439, 445, 515, 530. The business was not without risk: in November 1657 Child presented himself at the commissioners’ door to petition not just for sums owed to him, as someone who had contracted at a fair price when others had refused, but for compensation for the loss of £500 worth of canvas stolen by Dunkirkers.24CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 475.

Then styled Major John Child, in October 1658 he was made burgess of Portsmouth, perhaps in expectation of a forthcoming Parliament.25Portsmouth RO, CE 1/7, p. 105. When the election was held there on 8 January 1659, Child was elected in second place, albeit not without opposition.26CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 248. He made no recorded impression upon the proceedings of the assembly, however, and subsequently had no discernible association with either the town or corporation.

By July 1659, Child appears to have been active in London affairs, having been appointed both a member of the militia commission in the capital, and a major in the regiment of horse raised in the City.27A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 32; CJ vii. 732a, b. In August he was paid £20 by the council of state for intelligence services, and was ordered to confer with its committee of examinations, which apparently authorised him to arrest certain suspected persons.28CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 67, 75, 580. The earliest clear sign of his political attitudes came in November, when the London militia committee divided over whether to send a letter to General George Monck* protesting at his action in raising forces to march into England. Child sided with those in the City opposed to Monck and the return of the Rump, including the Baptist, William Kiffin*, Samuel Moyer* and the regicide, Owen Roe, against men like John Okey*, Slingisby Bethell* and Praise-God Barbon*.29A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Committee of the Militia of London (1659, 669.f.22.6).

Child thus probably opposed the Restoration in 1660. Perhaps as a result, he was removed from the corporation at Portsmouth in September 1662.30Portsmouth RO, PE 7, unfol. His activity and whereabouts in the next few years do not appear. He was neither the John Child of Clifford’s Inn who was appointed clerk of the castle and bailiwick of church property at Farnham in 1661, nor the John Child ‘carpenter’ who appears fleetingly in Portsmouth borough records over the next two decades.31Hants RO, 21M65/A/1/32 (Bishop’s Reg. 1660-88), f. 24a; Add. 72858, ff. 205, 215v; Portsmouth Sessions Pprs. 1653-1688 ed. Hoad, 37, 44, 64, 70. In the 1670s, however, he re-emerges as a merchant supplying the navy with canvas from his base at Lyon Wharf on the Thames.32CSP Dom. 1660-85, pp. 425, 437; Add. 29554, f. 481. He also retained his links with old friends from the 1650s, including William Kiffin, with whom he was involved in at least one land deal with the son of Richard Cromwell*, on behalf of the former lord protector.33Hants RO, 58M71/E/T25. Child died between the end of September 1686, when he wrote his will, and 3 November, when the will was proved. He left three daughters and two sons, John and Samuel, and possessed land in three counties, as well as land in New England, which he left to his grandson John English, son of John English, Salter.34PROB11/385/124. His widow, Anne, was living in 1699, when she was mentioned in the will of her brother-in-law, Sir Josiah Child.35PROB11/451/289. The latter had sons who sat in Parliament.