1625 – 1649 Charles I
1628 William Harvey, a physician of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, published a treatise on the circulation of the blood which opened the way to a more enlightened way of studying the human body and its ailments.
1634 Sir William Noy was buried in St Lawrence’s Church. He had lived in a house next to Church House (the old vicarage) and had been Attorney General to Charles I. He introduced the Ship Money Tax. This required the Sheriff of every county to provide a Ship of War for the King’s service and send it provided and fitted out or to impose a levy upon the county to raise enough money to do the same. This tax was very unpopular and soon after Noy’s burial the brass plate on his gravestone was defaced.
1635 The map by Moses Glover in Syon House illustrates ‘New Braynford’ as a continuous row of buildings from the bridge to the Half Acre and says that with ‘Oulde Braynford is Extended one Mille in one streete onely’. The Minister at St Lawrence’s Church, which is shown with a spire on the top of the tower, was Mr Henderson. A timber yard is shown, three wharves on the Brent and a brewhouse west of the bridge. There is a bowling alley in the Ham. Ye Lion and Ye Doves (later the Red Lion and the Three Pigeons) at the market, the Boars Head opposite and the George nearby nearly opposite the church. The roof of Sir Edward and Dame Mary Spencer’s new house at Boston is shown with together with the old manor house which was later damaged by fire and demolished.
1642 King Charles I tried to arrest Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and started events that led to the Civil War. (1642-1648)
1642 After the Battle of Edgehill at the start of the first Civil War Prince Rupert, the King’s nephew, attacked the Parliamentary forces camping in the town. They were forced to withdraw and the town was sacked leaving many citizens destitute.
1642 The Battle of Brentford (November 12th)
1644 Charles I created Patrick Ruthven Earl of Forth as Earl of Brentford as a reward for his service at the Battle of Brentford in 1642. Ruthven was accused by Lord Clarendon of immoderate drinking which clouded his understanding and of being illiterate. He died in 1651 and the title became extinct until 1689.
1647 Church House was presented to the parish of New Brentford by Sir Edward Spencer for use by the minister of St Lawrence’s church. It was demolished late in the 19th century and the present house next to St Lawrence’s was built as a new vicarage.
When Charles I was imprisoned at Hampton Court his children were cared for by the Earl of Northumberland at Syon where the King was allowed to visit them.
1648 The Quaker movement came into being and attracted widespread support amongst people wanting toleration, equality and the end of interference in religious matters.
1649 The execution of Charles I
1649 – 1880 THE COMMONWEALTH
Oliver Cromwell, The Lord Protector
1651 The Justices fined a local citizen for ‘being drunk on the Lord’s Day and tippling at Widow Hubbard’s on the Lord’s Day’
1652 A warrant was to be issued on those who refuse to pay the rate for ‘repaire of the chappell of New Brentford’
1653 An assessment of values of properties for a monthly levy shows the relative values of properties in New Brentford. Mr Hawley’s patent to hold the market was valued at £200, the Manor of Boston and the manor house £126, the Red Lion Inn £40 and the Three Pigeons £3
1658 Dame Mary Spencer of Boston Manor died and left rents of properties in the Butts to finance the apprenticing of one poor boy each year from New Brentford.
1659 This was the first record of The Society of Friends (Quakers) meeting in Brentford ‘when John Tysoe, a shoemaker, so angered local people with his preaching that he was put in the stocks. He was later committed to Newgate Prison by the Justices.