PORTER, John (c.1604-52), of Margeretting, Essex.

The Porters could claim no ancient link with Essex. Originally from Nottinghamshire, they had later settled in Sussex and it was John Porter senior, this MP’s father, who had been the first member of the family to live in Kent.10Vis. Kent 1619-21, 155. That the MP’s mother was from Devon added to the geographical spread of his ancestry.11Vis. Devon 1620, 129. The evidence for the date of birth of John Porter junior is conflicting, although, on balance, it seems that 1604 is more likely than the alternative, 1609.12Vis. Kent 1619-21, 155; Al. Ox. Without an inheritance of his own, Porter seems to have pursued a career as a professional lawyer with some success until the 1640s.

His marriage to a daughter of Sir John Bramston ought to have aided his career at the bar. During the 1620s Bramston had established himself as one of the leading lawyers of his day, becoming in 1635 lord chief justice of the court of king’s bench. Stepping down then as recorder of Maldon, he secured Porter’s appointment in his place.13Essex RO, D/B 3/1/20, f. 48. This in turn led to Porter’s election to the Short Parliament as MP for the borough.14Essex RO, D/B 3/1/20, f. 100. No record survives of any activity by him during that Parliament, but it is plausible that, mirroring his father-in-law’s stance on the bench, Porter was among those MPs more reluctant to criticise recent royal policies. If so, this might explain why that autumn he was replaced as MP for Maldon by a complete outsider, Sir John Clotworthy*.

Porter’s response to the outbreak of the civil war was probably powerless neutrality. His brother-in-law John Bramston† wrote of Porter that he was

a very discreet man, very well studied in the law, and could not have missed of good preferment, if a weak consumptive body and a turbulent, tumultuous age had not discouraged him.15Bramston, Autobiog. 25.

Bramston confirms that Porter refused to support Parliament because he was ‘loyal and therefore termed malignant’, thereby damaging his legal career, with the result that he ‘gave over practice too, tho’ a very good lawyer’.16Bramston, Autobiog. 109. It was certainly true that he was suspected of royalist sympathies, for the Committee for Advance of Money assessed him for £50 in February 1644. His case was discharged after he immediately agreed to pay £40.17CAM 336. That he was not named to any local commission during the 1640s would also be consistent with a desire to remain neutral. Sometime during 1645 he was replaced as recorder of Maldon.18Essex RO, D/B 3/1/20, ff. 140, 146v. How far he withdrew from his practice as a lawyer is more difficult to establish. He was still sufficiently active in 1648 to be promoted to the bench of the Inner Temple, while his yearly appointment as one of the stewards for the readers’ dinners from 1649 suggests that he played a full part in the Inn’s social life.19CITR ii. 283, 287, 288, 291, 293, 296, 299, 301, 302; Masters of the Bench, 34. Following the death of the wife of his eldest son in 1648, Sir John Bramston began spending each winter with the Porters at their house at Margeretting, which was only about five miles from the Bramstons’ seat at Skreens.20Bramston, Autobiog. 107-9, 111.

The ill health mentioned by his brother-in-law presumably contributed to Porter’s death in 1652. On 9 December, one week after he had completed his will, he was buried in the side aisle of the Temple Church.21PROB11/231/152; CITR ii. 364. Two of his four surviving sons followed him in training as barristers but failed to make a success of that career.22Bramston, Autobiog. 25-6. None of his descendants became MPs, making him the only member of the family ever to sit in Parliament.