Situated at the head of the Orwell estuary in east Suffolk, with a population estimated at about 4,300 in 1603, Ipswich was the most important shipbuilding centre in the country after London. It was estimated in 1625 that there had been an annual average of 12 launchings for the past 30 years. A head port with resident customs and Admiralty officials, Ipswich played an important part in the Newcastle coal trade, with 50 colliers of between 200 and 300 tons burthen plying regularly between Tyne and Thames around six times a year.
Although not itself a major centre for textile production (apart from sailcloth), about one-sixth of the Eastland Company’s exports of Suffolk broadcloth were shipped from Ipswich to the Baltic and Scandinavia. However, in the early seventeenth century this trade was in long-term decline, so that the corporation was obliged to explore alternative forms of commerce. In 1605 it applied to the lord treasurer for permission to establish a staple for the re-export of grain from the Baltic. Eleven years later it sponsored a project to establish a sugar refinery, and in the early 1620s the permission of the royal favourite, the marquess of Buckingham, was sought to establish a staple, this time of ‘of all manner of East [i.e. Baltic] commodities’.
Ipswich’s corporation resented interference from the county magistrates, despite the fact that the borough did not enjoy separate county status, and in 1615 it protested that the town lay outside the jurisdiction of the Suffolk deputy lieutenants.
The town’s first charter dates from 1200, although the borough was not incorporated until 1446. Municipal government was headed by two annually elected bailiffs, who were usually chosen from among the 12 ‘portmen’ or aldermen. The bailiffs and four other senior portmen served as the borough’s magistrates and deputy lieutenants. The portmen, together with 24 common councilmen, formed the ‘Assembly’. Before the Civil War control was exercised by a closely linked oligarchy, ‘generally recommended for the orderly government of that town’, as a report of a committee of the Privy Council stated in 1620. Opposition to the oligarchy found expression in an attempt by the small tradesmen and artisans to organize themselves into a Clothworkers and Tailors’ Company. They obtained a charter in 1606, but King’s Bench did not approve their restrictions on entry into the trade and the Company was dissolved by order of the assize justices in 1620. The borough was represented in Parliament from at least 1298. Elections took place at the ‘General Court’, consisting of all the freemen of the borough, although the Assembly, which in this period dominated the General Court, nominated the candidates. The bailiffs made the return, which was usually dated a few days after the election. In 1626, however, eight days elapsed between the election and the dating of the indenture.
During the Elizabethan period the borough had striven to maintain its electoral independence, but with mixed results, and by the 1590s one seat had fallen under the control of the high steward, who, by 1601, was lord treasurer Buckhurst (Thomas Sackville†). In that year Buckhurst nominated (Sir) Francis Bacon, while the other seat went to (Sir) Michael Stanhope, a Suffolk courtier closely connected to the Cecils.
In 1604 Buckhurst, shortly to become 1st earl of Dorset, nominated both his son-in-law Sir Henry Glemham, a Suffolk knight, and Bacon. The corporation responded by agreeing to accept Glemham, so long as he took the freedom, but complained that it had already been approached by Stanhope for a seat. Buckhurst was therefore asked to mediate between Stanhope and Bacon. The corporation presumably also hoped that Buckhurst would come to an agreement with Stanhope’s patron, Lord Cecil (Robert Cecil†). In the event Stanhope was returned for Orford, but there may still have been opposition to Bacon, as on 24 Feb. Edward Grimston, whose father had represented the borough under Elizabeth, was made free with Glemham. Nevertheless, Glemham and Bacon were elected on 3 March.
On 6 Feb. a proposed bill to regulate the taking of lodgers, probably intended to assist the corporation’s attempts to restrict the numbers of poor migrants, was read at the Assembly. The measure was referred to the borough’s law officers for redrafting, in addition it was agreed to raise £100 to cover the costs of promoting it in the forthcoming Parliament. The bill clearly had considerable support among the rulers of Ipswich as on 9 Mar. various members of the Assembly offered to lend money to cover costs until the £100 was raised. However, on 4 Apr. the town clerk, who had been sent to Westminster to lobby for the measure, and had presumably consulted sympathetic members, reported that it was not thought suitable to proceed with and the bill was abandoned before it had even received a first reading.
Dorset died in 1608 and his successor as high steward, Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, played no known part in Ipswich elections.
In the Parliaments of the 1620s Snelling and Cage worked closely together to advance the economic interests of their constituency. In 1621, for instance, they combined to attack the lighthouse patentees.
By late 1625 the Ipswich shipping industry was being adversely affected by war, particularly the depredations of the Spanish privateers operating from Dunkirk.
After five successive parliaments, the partnership of Snelling and Cage was broken by the death of the former in 1627, leaving Cage the dominant political force in Ipswich. Bells were rung in the town on the summoning of Parliament in 1628, and at the ensuing election, attended by 126 freemen, the vacant seat was taken by Edmund Day, the senior member of the town’s common council and in all likelihood a Forced Loan refuser.
in the freemen
Number of voters: 126 in 1628