Sir Thomas Bloodworth, born Blidward, also spelt Bludworth (baptised 13 February 1620 – 12 May 1682) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
from 1660 to 1679. He was
Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...
from October 1665 to October 1666 and his inaction during the early stages of the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
was widely criticised as one of the causes of the great extent of the damage to the city.
Background
Bloodworth was the son of Edward Blidward,
yeoman
Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
of
Heanor
Heanor (/ˈhiːnə/) is a town in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire in the East Midlands of England. It lies north-east of Derby and forms, with the adjacent village of Loscoe, the civil parish and town council-administered area of Heano ...
,
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
and was baptised on 13 February 1620.
[History of Parliament Online - Bludworth, Thomas]
/ref> In 1635, he was apprenticed to a London vintner and became a member of the mercantile guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
the Company of Vintners. He became a Turkey merchant i.e. a member of the Levant Company
The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, ...
or Turkey Company
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in S ...
, an English chartered company formed in 1581 to conduct English trade with Turkey and the Levant or its successors, dissolved in 1825 and is any merchant dealing in the same geographic area or in similar goods. He was primarily a timber merchant. He was a member of the committee of the East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
(E.I.C.) from 1651 to 1661, and one of the Court Assistants for the Levant Company
The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, ...
from 1652 to 1665. In 1658, he was elected an alderman of the City of London for Dowgate
Dowgate, also referred to as ''Downgate'' and ''Downegate'', is a small ward in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. The ward is bounded to the east by Swan Lane and Laurence Poutney Lane, to the south by the River Th ...
ward.[ : 'Chronological list of aldermen: 1651-1700', The Aldermen of the City of London: Temp. Henry III - 1912 (1908), pp. 75-119. Date accessed: 15 May 2012]
/ref> In 1660, he was elected Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
for Southwark
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
in the Convention Parliament. He was knighted on 16 May 1660. He was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company
The Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) is a reserve regiment in the British Army. Incorporated by royal charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII, it is the oldest regiment in the British Army and is considered the second-oldest military unit in the w ...
in 1659, Colonel of the Orange Regiment of London Trained Bands
The London Trained Bands (LTBs) were a part-time military force in the City of London from 1559 until they were reconstituted as conventional Militia regiments in 1794. They were periodically embodied for home defence, for example in the army must ...
in 1659-60 and a colonel of their Yellow Regiment from 1660 to 1682. In 1661, he was re-elected MP for Southwark for the Cavalier Parliament
The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, and longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of C ...
. He became an alderman for Portsoken
Portsoken, traditionally referred to with the definite article as the Portsoken, is one of the City of London's 25 ancient wards, which are still used for local elections. Historically an extra-mural Ward, lying east of Aldgate and the City wal ...
ward in 1662, and was a member of the committee of the E.I.C. from 1662 to 1663. In 1663, he served as one of the two sheriffs of London. He was alderman
An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...
of Aldersgate
Aldersgate is a Ward of the City of London, named after one of the northern gates in the London Wall which once enclosed the City.
The Ward of Aldersgate is traditionally divided into Aldersgate Within and Aldersgate Without, the suffix denot ...
from 1663 to 1682, and was on the committee of the E.I.C again from 1664 to 1665. In 1665, he was Master of the Vintners Company.[
]
Fire of London
Bloodworth became Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powe ...
in November 1665. In the early hours of 2 September 1666, a fire broke out in the house of Thomas Farriner
Thomas Farriner ( – 20 December 1670) was a British baker and churchwarden in 17th century London. Allegedly, his bakery in Pudding Lane was the source point for the Great Fire of London on 2 September 1666.
Career
Farriner joined the Bak ...
(sometimes spelt Farynor), a baker. The methods of firefighting
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter.
Firefighters typically ...
at the time included the use of long sticks with hooks on the end, which were used to pull down buildings adjacent to those burning. This was meant to contain the fire by removing material it could spread to. However, this was also the destruction of property and was considered a serious matter, so the Mayor was summoned to permit it to take place.
When Bloodworth arrived, he refused to allow the demolition to take place. Possibly, this was due to fear of complaints from the owners of the buildings which would be destroyed that such actions were unnecessary. According to Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
' record of the events, he expressed a lack of concern that the fire would become dangerous, saying that "a woman might piss it out," before returning to his home and going back to sleep. Over the next three days, the fire destroyed more than 15 per cent of the city.
Bloodworth was widely blamed for the failure to stop the fire, however, he appears to have been made a scapegoat. Without the King's authority, he could not pull down houses without being personally responsible for the cost of rebuilding them, and he was also faced with stiff resistance from the aldermen.
Bloodworth continued to sit in parliament until 1679 and was one of the Court Assistants of the Levant Company from 1673 to 1675. He died in May 1682, aged 62, and was buried at Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leath ...
, Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
.
Pepys wrote of Bloodworth as "a silly man, I think" (30 June 1666) and "a very weak man he seems to be" (1 December 1666). He was described as "a zealous person in the King's concernments; willing though it may be not very able, to do great things". Dr. Scott gave his funeral sermon in which he said "he had a mighty affection and zeal for the King and for the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
".['Notes on the aldermen, 1502-1700', The Aldermen of the City of London: Temp. Henry III - 1912 (1908), pp. 168-195. Date accessed: 15 May 2012]
/ref>
Family
Bloodworth married:
:Firstly Mary Rogers, daughter of Walter Rogers, a leather seller in London and Leatherhead and had two sons and a daughter.
:Secondly, on 6 January 1657, Mary Benn, widow of Henry Benn, slopseller of London and daughter of a boat-builder called Butcher, and had two sons and three daughters.[
His daughter Anne married firstly Sir John Jones, and secondly ]George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys
George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, PC (15 May 1645 – 18 April 1689), also known as "the Hanging Judge", was a Welsh judge. He became notable during the reign of King James II, rising to the position of Lord Chancellor (and serving as ...
, James II's Lord Chief Justice
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
and Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...
, and was ancestress of the Earls of Pomfret
Earl of Pomfret (alias Pontefract) was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1721 for Thomas Fermor, 2nd Baron Leominster. It became extinct upon the death of the fifth earl in 1867.
Ancestral titles and achievements
The Fermor f ...
. She had the reputation of being a strong-minded woman, of whom even her formidable husband was afraid. A popular ballad joked that while St. George had killed a dragon, Sir George (Jeffreys) had married one.
In popular culture
Thomas Bloodworth is a featured character in the 2016 musical ''Bumblescratch
''Bumblescratch'' is an original sung-through musical with book, music and lyrics by Robert J. Sherman. The musical premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 4 September 2016 as a one night, celebrity gala charity event in aid of Variety, ...
''.
References
External links
Great Fire history involving Bloodworth
BBC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloodworth, Thomas
1620 births
1682 deaths
English knights
Sheriffs of the City of London
17th-century lord mayors of London
English MPs 1661–1679
Great Fire of London