Family and Education

b. 2 Dec. 1618, 3rd s. of Thomas Delves, grazier, of Hollington, Suss. m. 1644, Mary, da. and coh. of Edmund Warnett, Cutler and haberdasher, of London Bridge, 5s. (4 d.v.p.) 2da.1

Offices Held

Commr. for sewers, Surr. and Kent Aug. 1660, assessment, London Sept. 1660-1; alderman, London Apr.-June 1661, common councilman 1663-5, 1667-70; master, Merchant Taylors’ Co. 1662-3; dep. gov. Irish Soc. 1668-9.2

Biography

Delves came from a Sussex yeoman family. He was apprenticed to a London Merchant Taylor in 1635, and became a London tradesman, but retained his connexion with the county of his birth, and in particular the Hastings area, where his father farmed. His wife was also of a Sussex family, and in 1659 he bought the manor of Hoseland, three miles north of Hastings, where his brother Thomas acted as returning officer in both his successful elections. He himself held no office during the Interregnum, and probably had Anglican and royalist sympathies. In the Convention he was an in-active Member. He was appointed to seven committees, including those for drafting a clause in the book of rates concerning foreign ships and for the encouragement of English woollen manufactures and shipping. His only committee of political importance was for the attainder of Oliver Cromwell.3

Delves probably did not stand in 1661. In that year he fined for alderman, and, although elected to the common council, he seems to have resided in a large house in Camberwell, probably as tenant of the Muschamp estate, which had come to his kinsman, Edward Eversfield, by marriage. He received a grant of lands in Devon to pay off a loan of £350 made to a distressed loyalist, Sir Henry Norton, during the Interregnum, and in 1664 he sold out an investment of £600 in the East India Company; but his was evidently not one of the large mercantile fortunes of the day. He served on the Camberwell vestry, and was buried in the parish church on 3 Nov. 1690, the only member of the family to sit in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / John. P. Ferris

Notes

• 1. Add. 5697, f. 70v; Soc. of Genealogists, Boyd’s London Units, 16532, 48931.
• 2. C181/7/31; J. R. Woodhead, Rulers of London, 59.
• 3. Fines of Manors (Suss. Rec. Soc. xix), 229; Bodl. Rawl. D682, f. 51; W. G. Moss, Hist. Hastings, 136; HMC 7th Rep. 151.
• 4. CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 159, 193; Cal. Ct. Min. E.I. Co. ed. Sainsbury, vii. 477; W. H. Blanch, Parish of Camberwell, 52, 144, 156-7; J. Comber, Suss. Genealogies Horsham, 93; Greater London RO, Camberwell St. Giles par. reg.