BINDLOSS, Sir Francis (1603-1629), of Borwick Hall, Warton, Lancs.

The Bindloss family was descended from a cotton merchant who served as mayor of Kendal in 1579 and was afterwards knighted. This Member’s father purchased Borwick Hall, in Lonsdale hundred, north of Lancaster, and was appointed sheriff of Lancashire in 1612. Built in the last decade of the sixteenth century, the Hall incorporates a defensive tower and a chapel with a priest-hole, though the latter may have been a later addition. VCH Lancs. viii. 170-1; T.D. Whitaker, Hist. Richmondshire, ii. 310-12; W.O. Roper, ‘Borwick Hall’, Hist. Soc. of Lancs. and Cheshire, n.s. xi. 21-6.

Having pursued a gentleman’s education at Cambridge and Gray’s Inn, Bindloss himself was knighted at the age of 21; thereafter he followed his father in trade and money-lending ventures. P.R. Long, ‘Wealth of the Magisterial Class in Lancs., 1590-1640’ (Manchester Univ. MA thesis, 1968), p. 168; CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 430; C78/268/10. The family’s commercial interests were furthered by Bindloss’s second marriage, to Cecilia, daughter of Lord De La Warr, a former Governor of Virginia, though he later sued his widowed mother-in-law for non-payment of part of her daughter’s portion, an annuity of £500 arising from a Virginia customs patent. E134/3Chas.I/Mich 8; Recs. Virg. Co. ed. S.M. Kingsbury, iv. 363, 369.

As a wealthy member of the local gentry, Bindloss presumably had sufficient influence to obtain his election at Lancaster in 1628; it is not known whether he was backed by the chancellor of the Duchy, who usually nominated the borough’s representatives. Bindloss was appointed to only one committee, for Henry, Lord Morley’s tenants bill, on 16 Apr. 1628. CD 1628, ii. 479. He died intestate on 25 July 1629, and was buried the next day at Warton church. Warton Par. Regs. 263. His widow, who later married Sir John Byron*, obtained wardship of their four-year old son, with the support of Robert Strickland*. WARD 9/163, f. 22. An inquisition post mortem recorded that Bindloss held property in Craven, Yorkshire, but he never inherited the patrimonial estate of Borwick. C142/455/37. His eldest son and heir Robert, created a baronet in 1641, took Parliament’s side in the Civil War, and was elected for Lancaster in 1646, but became disillusioned by the Protectorate and later entertained Charles II at Borwick in 1651. At the Restoration he was rewarded with the duchy office of steward of Lonsdale hundred, and in 1660 was returned as a knight of the shire.