GURDON, Brampton (1566-1650), of Assington, Suff.

Gurdon’s grandfather bought the Suffolk manor of Assington, four miles from Sudbury, in 1556, and his father represented the borough in 1571. W.A. Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 18; HP Commons, 1558-1603, ii. 231. Gurdon himself was committed to the Fleet by lord chancellor Ellesmere (Thomas Egerton†) in 1606 for an unknown offence. Winthrop Pprs. i. 100. He was elected for Sudbury in January 1621, although the return was backdated to the previous November. Gurdon may have been responsible for the election of his colleague, Edward Osborne, whose sister-in-law married (at an unknown date) Gurdon’s younger son Robert. Gurdon appears only once in the surviving records of the third Jacobean Parliament, when he was appointed to the committee for the bill for catechizing children (16 May 1621). CJ, i. 622a.

In January 1626 Gurdon successfully proposed (Sir) Robert Naunton* as one of the knights of the shire for Suffolk, recruiting his friend and neighbour the future governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop to canvass prominent members of the Suffolk gentry, such as Sir Robert Crane*. Winthrop Pprs. i. 325. Like Winthrop, Gurdon was a puritan, and when the anti-Calvinist Matthew Wren took control of Norwich diocese in 1636, it was reported that ‘Mr. Gurdon is questioned for not bowing and kneeling at burial prayers’. On 11 Apr. 1637 Gurdon wrote gloomily to Winthrop in New England: ‘I would I could write you anything like to give comfort to any honest English mind for church or commonwealth’.Ibid. iii. 261, 386; v. 79.

Gurdon’s eldest son John represented Ipswich in both the Short and Long Parliaments. Gurdon himself served on the county committee during the Civil War, although it is difficult to distinguish him from his younger son Brampton†, who, like him, was an active supporter of Parliament. Gurdon drew up his will on 17 Oct. 1647, leaving an imposing collection of silver and furnishings to his second wife, together with 500 marks, his best coach, five horses, and a musket. Her son Brampton, who had been returned for Sudbury as a recruiter, inherited property in Norfolk, and the local clergy and servants received monetary bequests. The poor of Assington were to receive £20 and those of Sudbury £5. PROB 11/212, ff. 120-1. Gurdon was buried at Assington on 2 Apr. 1650. His eldest son moved up to represent the county in the first Protectorate Parliament, and sat for Sudbury in the Convention.