Wigan

Located slightly to the north of, and roughly equidistant between, Manchester and Liverpool, Wigan commanded the point where the Great North Road from London crossed the River Douglas. Wigan parish had around 4,000 inhabitants in the early Stuart period, while the town itself contained 458 households in 1664, suggesting a population of approximately 2,000. Wigan was therefore Lancashire’s largest town after Manchester, although its Ship Money assessment was the highest of any urban centre in the county. The town’s economic life was dominated by coal-mining – the Wigan coalfield containing easily accessible seams of high-quality ‘cannel’ coal – and the metal industries that were fuelled by it. Wigan may have been second only to London as a centre for pewter production, although braziery (brass-making) and pan-making were probably more important to its economy. The textile and leather industries were also well-established in the town. E179/250/11; A.J.H. Latham, ‘Wigan, 1540-1640’, in King Cotton ed. J.F. Wilson (Lancaster, 2009), 247-8, 256-66. Wigan was described in the 1670s as ‘of a good trade and much inhabited by braziers, pewterers, dyers, weavers of rugs, coverlets and ticking [cloth] for bedding; and is most famous for fuel, especially for the choicest coal in England, called cannel’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 135.

A borough by incorporation, Wigan was governed by a mayor and two bailiffs, who were elected annually from among the town’s freemen ‘by the greater vote of the burgesses [freemen] present of that corporation’. Much of the town’s government was conducted through a court leet – of which the Michaelmas meeting was presided over by the mayor and bailiffs and the Easter meeting by a steward appointed by the lord of the manor, the rector of Wigan. The Michaelmas or mayor’s court leet was responsible for electing aldermen, who apparently served for life (there were 25 by 1653), of whom the residents among them may have acted as an informal town council. In addition, the rector exercised manorial authority over the town’s inhabitants through his court baron. Wigan Archives Service, Wigan ct. leet rolls 5, 9; VCH Lancs. iv. 72-3; Sinclair, Wigan, i. 172; ii. 10. Wigan had first sent Members to Parliament in 1295, but had then ceased to do so in the early fourteenth century and had not been re-enfranchised until 1545. HP Commons 1509-58. The franchise was vested in those elected and formally enrolled by the corporation as burgesses – a group that comprised the ‘in-burgesses’, or resident freemen, and the ‘out-burgesses’, or non-resident freemen. As at Clitheroe, the out-burgesses were dominated by the local gentry. Sinclair, Wigan, i. 214, 221, 222-3. The returning officers were the mayor and bailiffs. C219/42/2/139; C219/43/2/20.

The history of Wigan during the early Stuart period was punctuated by outbreaks of the town’s centuries-old jurisdictional feud between the corporation and the rector as lord of the manor. The town’s original, 1246, charter had effectively created rival governing authorities in Wigan, and by the seventeenth century they had a long history of quarrelling over tithes, charitable uses, market tolls and similar issues. A fresh round of bickering broke out after the appointment in 1616 of John Bridgeman (created bishop of Chester in 1619) as rector. Bridgeman was determined to re-assert what he saw as his predecessors’ ultimate authority over the town and all of its courts. Similarly, he was eager to claim at least one of the borough’s parliamentary seats for his own nominees, telling the corporation that it had ‘no power to elect burgesses but by my sufferance’. VCH Lancs. iv. 70-3; HP Commons, 1604-29; ‘John Bridgeman’, Oxford DNB. Ill-feeling between the two parties continued into the early 1630s, when several of the leading inhabitants formally protested against Bridgeman’s high-handed proceedings as lord of the manor. They particularly resented the bishop publicly declaring that ‘the mayor of Wigan was his mayor and that the bailiffs were his bailiffs, and that the same [sic] mayor had not power to whip a dog’. Lancs. RO, DDKE/Box 73/5; HMC Kenyon, 25. In 1637, however, Bridgeman successfully promoted a petition from Wigan for exemption from paying Ship Money on grounds of the town’s poverty. Bridgeman, Wigan, ii. 399.

The election at Wigan for the Short Parliament, in the spring of 1640, was a hotly-contested affair in which the bishop’s son Orlando Bridgeman was a leading candidate. Infra, ‘Orlando Bridgeman’. According to a nineteenth-century printed copy of the original poll book (which is apparently no longer extant), the freemen gave their votes on election day, 17 March, for six candidates – Orlando Bridgeman, who received 112 votes; Alexander Rigby I*, 104; Robert Gardiner, 72; Sir Anthony St John†, 4; Edward Prescott, 1; and Simon Every*, 1. Sinclair, Wigan, i. 214-15; A.J. Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war, 1639-51’, Trans. Lancs. and Cheshire Antiquarian Soc. xlvii. 96 n.13. The two winning candidates were returned accordingly, with Bridgeman taking the senior place. C219/42/2/139.

Bridgeman’s interest at Wigan was so strong, thanks to his father, that he did not feel the need to attend the election in person. Sinclair, Wigan, i. 215. Rigby, a puritan and future parliamentarian, was the eldest son of a Wigan attorney and had many friends among the leading in-burgesses, who included his brother Alderman George Rigby and his brother-in-law Alderman Robert Mawdesley (both of whom acted as his electoral managers). Infra, ‘Alexander Rigby I’. Gardiner was the scion of a local minor gentry family, whose father had served as mayor of Wigan in the 1590s. A younger son, he had left Lancashire to become a London merchant and had stood for election at Wigan, unsuccessfully, in 1628. He would be imprisoned by the Commons early in 1642 for promoting what was perceived as a royalist petition. CJ ii. 448b, 481a; Pearl, London, 150; HP Commons 1604-1629; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘William Gardiner’. St John was a carpet-bagger, but with powerful local patrons (including Bishop Bridgeman himself), and had been returned for Wigan in 1624, 1626 and 1628. Prescott, a tailor, who had served as warden of the Wigan tailors’ company, was probably a son or another relation of William Prescott, a freeman who had stood for election at Wigan in 1628, likewise without success. Wigan Archives Service, Wigan ct. leet roll 2; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Anthony St John’; ‘Wigan’; Sinclair, Wigan, i. 214, 220; Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war’, 93. Every was receiver-general of the duchy of Lancaster and was doubtless nominated by the chancellor of the duchy, Lord Barrett of Newburgh (Sir Edward Barrett†). Sinclair, Wigan, i. 214, 218. Although he failed spectacularly at Wigan, he secured a seat at Leicester with Newburgh’s help. Infra, ‘Simon Every’.

Forty of Wigan’s 162 out-burgesses and 111 of its 128 in-burgesses voted in the Short Parliament election. The vast majority of the out-burgesses who voted did so for Bridgeman or Rigby or, more usually, for both. Only three – among them, Thomas Standish* – voted for Gardiner. Sinclair, Wigan, i. 214. Most of Gardiner’s support, therefore, came from the in-burgesses. Although Gardiner was not a burgess himself, it seems that he was regarded by some of the townsmen as more attuned with their interests than his competitors.

The competition for places at Wigan was no less strong in the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640 – and Rigby, for one, was taking no chances. Early in October, he wrote to his brother George, at Wigan, urging him to persuade various ‘gentlemen of quality, my good friends’, to attend the mayor of Wigan, ‘and, first in a friendly manner’, request that he give Rigby plenty of advance warning as to when the election would be held. But, continued Rigby,

if he [the mayor] will not consent or promise to do so in courtesy, then let them [Rigby’s gentlemen friends] signify to him that it is his duty; that if he do otherwise, they will appeal to the Parliament House for justice. But let this be so carried that I may not appear in this course, but that it may be solely their own act. HMC Kenyon, 58.

In the event, Rigby’s friends did not need to get on their high horses, for on 23 October the local gentleman and out-burgess Alexander Thompson informed George Rigby that the mayor of Wigan was ‘very constant and firm assured’ for Alexander Rigby and Orlando Bridgeman, was agreeable to holding the election at a date most convenient for Alexander and was confident that Rigby’s and Bridgeman’s strongest competitor, Gardiner, would not receive much support. Rigby’s friends, however, were worried that one of the aldermen, the future royalist William Pilkington, ‘will propound him [Gardiner] and hath made private friends if he perceive the country [i.e. the out-burgesses] do not come in’. Rigby himself anticipated opposition from another of the aldermen, Richard Worsley. The Rigby interest worked hard, therefore, to rally as many of its supporters among the out-burgesses as possible. Lancs. RO, DDKE/9/23/29, 52, 53, 54, 56; DDKE/9/27/9; HMC Kenyon, 58; Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war’, 107.

Election day was on 26 October, not 22 October as stated in nineteenth century printed copy of the original poll-book (which again, does not appear to have survived). Lancs. RO, DDKE/9/27/9; HMC Kenyon, 58; Sinclair, Wigan, ii. 3. The freemen divided their votes between six candidates: Rigby, who received 136 votes; Bridgeman, 126; Gardiner, 57; John Standish, 4; Ralph Standish, 2; and Sir Dudley Carleton, 1. John Standish was a member of a local gentry family, Ralph Standish was one of the town’s aldermen, and Carleton was the clerk of the privy council and obviously a government nominee. The only gentleman to vote for Carleton was George Rigby – possibly because, as the county’s clerk of the peace, he was more open to persuasion by the duchy of Lancaster (and hence the government) than his fellow freemen. Of the 123 in-burgesses listed on the poll-book, 109 voted; and of the 168 out-burgesses, 54 voted. The total number of voters was therefore 163 – 12 up from the March election. Again, relatively few of the out-burgesses (ten) voted for Gardiner, and those of the in-burgesses who voted for him divided their other vote fairly evenly between Rigby and Bridgeman.

The reversal in the position of the two successful candidates since March 1640 may be evidence that Bridgeman’s interest had suffered slightly as a result of his own and his father’s close association with Archbishop William Laud and the court and that Rigby had profited from his credentials as a godly critic of royal policy. Nevertheless, as in the Short Parliament election, the most obvious division among the electorate seems to have related to tensions between the out-burgesses and the pro-Gardiner in-burgesses rather than to national political issues. Sinclair, Wigan, ii. 3-9; Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war’, 94; ‘George Rigby’, Oxford DNB. The election indenture has not survived, but it appears that Bridgeman, as the son of a bishop and de facto peer of the realm, was again accorded the senior place, despite coming second on the poll. Sinclair, Wigan, i. 222.

Some insight into the political and electoral tensions at Wigan in 1640 is provided by a certificate that – at the request of Bridgeman and Rigby – the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses drew up in the hours after the election on 26 October for presentation to the Commons when Parliament assembled in November. The corporation insisted that although the town’s MPs had been chosen ‘for a time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary’ exclusively by the enrolled burgesses, nevertheless, at the end of that day’s election ‘diverse inferior persons, labourers and handicraftsmen, being free only to trade within the said town and not being enrolled burgesses of the said corporation, did require voices in that election’. When challenged to show evidence that the franchise was vested in anyone other than the enrolled burgesses, the protesters apparently made no adequate reply, and their demands were denied. However, the corporation evidently felt that this had not settled the matter, for on 7 November it presented a petition to the Commons, complaining that

divers inferior persons, inhabitants, labourers and handicraftsmen, being free only to trade within the said town of Wigan and no enrolled or sworn burgesses of the said corporation, by the instigation and inciting of others of uncivil government, have combined, confederated and complotted together and do give it out in speeches that they will disannul and annihilate the elections of burgesses [MPs] ... which was made in a free and public manner, as is certified ... And the said persons, inhabitants and tradesmen do also give it out in speeches that they will have a new election of burgesses for this said borough to be sent to this Parliament, wherein they will have as good election and votes as any the sworn and enrolled burgesses of the same borough have.

The petitioners requested that the Commons uphold the election of Bridgeman and Rigby; and, although assured of the House’s wisdom and justice, they appointed one of the burgesses, a Gray’s Inn lawyer, as the town’s attorney to ‘exhibit, prefer and prosecute’ the matter at Westminster. Sinclair, Wigan, ii. 10-1. It is possible that this protest by Wigan’s un-enrolled ‘freemen’ was related to the support among some of the burgesses for Gardiner, who was not enrolled himself (although by 1653 he had been appointed an alderman). Wigan Archives Service, Wigan ct. leet roll 9. Alexander Rigby informed his brother George in December that ‘if Mr Gardiner shall present his petition against our election it will not come in question till after the next term at the soonest’. Lancs. RO, DDKE/9/23/69. However, neither Gardiner nor the un-enrolled ‘freemen’ evidently saw fit to pursue the matter, for there in no record that the Commons received a formal complaint against Bridgeman’s and Rigby’s election.

The civil war divided the town’s MPs, with Rigby emerging as one of the most militant figures in the Commons and Bridgeman playing a leading role in the royalist war effort in Cheshire. Wigan itself was garrisoned for the king at the outbreak of civil war and became the headquarters for Lancashire’s royalist commander-in-chief, James Stanley†, 7th earl of Derby. It changed hands several times during the early months of 1643, and although the parliamentarians ended up masters of the town, it was either weakly garrisoned by them or left unsecured and offered no resistance to Prince Rupert when he marched into Lancashire in the summer of 1644. Indeed, he was received by the townspeople ‘with great tokens of joy, the streets being strewed with rushes and boughs of trees’, after which he was lavishly entertained by the corporation. Bodl. Carte 10, f. 664v; Mercurius Aulicus no. 25 (16-22 June 1644), 1037 (E.54.5); Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war’, 102-3, 107-8, 114-17, 120.

On 30 December 1645, the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for electing a new MP for Wigan in place of Bridgeman, who had been disabled from sitting back in August 1642. CJ iv. 392a. Late in January 1646, the countess of Ancram (daughter of William Stanley, 6th earl of Derby) wrote to the Lancashire parliamentarian grandee Colonel John Moore*, asking that he use his influence to secure the election at Wigan of her eldest son Charles Lord Kerr* – a younger step-brother of the Scottish Covenanter peer William Kerr, 3rd earl of Lothian. In mid-March, Lord Charles himself wrote to Moore to the same purpose. The countess and her son were obviously hoping to trade upon the Stanleys’ considerable interest in Lancashire, which the civil war had weakened but not destroyed – and indeed, Lord Charles would successfully claim a seat at Wigan after the Restoration. But there was a measure of desperation in their writing to Moore, whose interest in Wigan was almost certainly negligible – and, in the event, Lord Charles was elected that spring for the Cornish borough of Mitchel. Infra, ‘Charles Lord Kerr’; Liverpool RO, MDP Knowsley 1/1-2; HMC 10th Rep. IV, 75; ‘Robert Ker, 1st earl of Ancram’, ‘William Kerr, 3rd earl of Lothian’, Oxford DNB. In the ‘recruiter’ election at Wigan, on 30 March 1646, the town returned John Holcrofte – an out-burgess since at least 1640 and one of Lancashire’s leading parliamentarians. Infra, ‘John Holcrofte’; C219/43/2/20. Holcrofte almost certainly owed his return for Wigan, where he held little or no property, to the good offices of Wigan’s mayor for the year 1645-6, Sir Thomas Stanley, who was his long-time friend and political collaborator. Stanley’s father had also been a leading out-burgess and apparently a candidate for mayor himself in 1635. Infra, ‘John Holcrofte’; Wigan Archives Service, Wigan ct. leet roll 3; Sinclair, Wigan, i. 197.

Holcrofte and Sir Thomas Stanley had emerged during the civil war as critics of their more godly parliamentarian colleagues and had headed local opposition to the collection of excise and sequestration revenues. Infra, ‘John Holcrofte’. It is therefore possible that Holcrofte’s election at Wigan reflected dissatisfaction with, or even in some cases disaffection towards, Parliament among the burgesses. Gratton, Lancs. 120-1. The strength of royalist or disaffected feeling in Wigan prompted Alderman John Standish, one of the candidates in the Long Parliament election, to present the mayor and several of the aldermen to the Committee for Indemnity* in December 1647, alleging that they were convicted delinquents and should be dismissed from office. The committee upheld Standish’s charges and ordered the removal of the mayor and four of the aldermen. SP24/1, ff. 103v, 162; Craven, ‘Lancs.’, 45-6. Neither Stanley nor Holcrofte were implicated in this action, but it can only have confirmed the suspicions of the army and its supporters in Lancashire that Wigan and those associated with the town were not to be trusted. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Holcrofte was excluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, leaving Wigan without representation in the Rump. Infra, ‘John Holcrofte’.

Wigan’s reputation as a strongly royalist town – which had been acknowledged by Charles I himself – may help to explain why, despite its size, it was disenfranchised under the Instrument of Government of 1653. Hawkes, ‘Wigan’s part in the civil war’, 118-19, 136-7. However, it regained its seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, which saw the return of Hugh Forth and ‘Mr Markland inhabitant of the town’. The indenture, unfortunately, has not survived, thus contributing to the problem of identifying which of the several leading inhabitants with the surname Markland was returned as MP. The likeliest candidates are Raufe Markland of the Meadows, near Wigan, gentleman, and Robert Markland, mercer of Market Street. Infra, ‘-, Markland’. Hugh Forth was the scion of one of Wigan’s leading municipal families and was a kinsman of Robert Gardiner. Like Gardiner, he had left his native town to become a London merchant. Infra, ‘Hugh Forth’. Neither of Wigan’s MPs made any recorded impression upon the proceedings of this Parliament.

In the elections to the 1660 Convention, Wigan made a double return of Orlando Bridgeman on the one hand and of Forth and his cousin William Gardiner – Robert’s son – on the other. This disputed election may have represented another round in the struggle between the enrolled burgesses of the corporation and the un-enrolled ‘freemen’. Assuming that Gardiner and Forth represented and had been returned by a group that included the un-enrolled ‘freemen’, it raises the possibility that the election of Forth and Markland in 1659 had also been a victory for this interest over the corporation. HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Wigan’. Conflict between the town’s municipal elite and the unprivileged freemen remained a feature of the town’s electoral politics throughout the Restoration period. M. Mullett, ‘“A receptacle for papists and an assilum”’, Catholic Hist. Review, lxxiii. 392-3.