MAINWARING, Thomas (1623-89), of Over Peover, Cheshire.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Family and Education
b. 7 Apr. 1623, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Philip Mainwaring of Baddiley by Ellen, da. of Edward Minshull of Stoke. educ. Brasenose, Oxf. 1637; G. Inn 1638. m. 26 May 1642, Mary (d. 1 Mar. 1671), da. of Sir Henry Delves, 2nd Bt. of Doddington, 6s. (5 d.v.p.) 6da. suc. fa. 1647; cr. Bt. 22 Nov. 1660.1
Commr. for assessment, Cheshire 1648-52, 1657, Aug. 1660-3, 1664-80, 1689-d., militia 1648, Mar. 1660, j.p. by 1649-59, Mar. 1660-80, Mar.-Aug. 1681, Lancs. 1681-3; commr. for poor prisoners, Cheshire 1653, scandalous ministers 1654, security 1655-6, sheriff 1657-8, dep. lt. 1675-81, 1689-d.2
Mainwaring’s ancestors had held Over Peover since Domesday Book, but his great-uncle Sir Philip Mainwaring was the first to enter Parliament. His father, a ship-money sheriff, fought for Parliament in the Civil War as a colonel of horse, and Mainwaring himself, though more concerned with antiquarian pursuits than politics, was a decimator and one of the court candidates for Cheshire in 1656. He was removed from the commission of the peace in October 1659 after Booth’s rising. Returned for the county at the general election of 1660, he was an inactive Member of the Convention. He was appointed only to the committees for the continuation of judicial proceedings, for the inquiry into unauthorized Anglican publications, and for regulating fees, and did not speak. Presumably he gave satisfaction to the Government, for he was created a baronet early in the second session and his lease of fines and perquisites in the hundred of Macclesfield was renewed.3
Though Mainwaring must have conformed to the Church of England, and was nominated to the proposed order of the Royal Oak, with an income of £1,000 p.a., he never stood again. His removal from the commission of the peace in 1680 prompted Henry Booth to complain:
I think he knows the work of a justice of the peace as well as any man in England; I except no man. As for his integrity, he may set all men at defiance to accuse him of the least partiality in the discharge of his trust; and I do know that no man made it more his business than he did, that he might ease and serve the country; for as his ability was not inferior to that of any other man, so did he most duly put the laws into execution especially those against the Papists.
On Booth’s protest he was restored to the bench, but removed again in August 1681. He attended the Duke of Monmouth on his Cheshire progress in 1682 in a coach-and-six, and he was disarmed after the Rye House Plot and bound over at the assizes. He was released from his recognizances in April 1684, and actively supported his son at the general election in the following year. He was listed as in opposition to James II, and during the Revolution accompanied Booth on his march into Staffordshire. He died on 28 June 1689.4