HADDOCK, Sir Richard (c.1629-1715), of Mile End, Wapping, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1679

Family and Education

b. c.1629, s. of William Haddock, mariner, of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex by Anna Goodlad. m. (1) bef. 30 May 1657, Lydia, da. and coh. of John Stevens, master mariner, of Leigh-on-Sea, 1da.; (2) lic. 24 July 1671, Elizabeth (d. 26 Feb. 1710), da. of Nicholas Hurlestone, master mariner, of Rotherhithe, Surr., 3s. (1 d.v.p.) 2da. suc. fa. 1667; kntd. 3 July 1675.1

Offices Held

Lt. Commonwealth navy 1653, capt. 1656; capt. RN 1665-7, 1672-3; c.-in-c. Channel fleet 1682; adm. 1690.

Commr. for navy 1673-82, comptroller 1682-5, May 1688-d., commr. for old accounts 1685-May 1688, victualling 1683-90.

Freeman, Portsmouth 1673, Dunwich 1679; elder bro. Trinity House 1675-d., master 1687-8; commr. for assessment, Aldeburgh 1679-80, Mdx. 1689; j.p. Essex, Hants, Kent, Mdx., Suff., Surr. and Suss. 1680-?d., Westminster 1687-9.2

Biography

Haddock came from a seafaring family whose name occurs at Leigh as early as 1327. His grandfather and father both served in the Commonwealth navy, where his own service began. After the Restoration he traded in the Mediterranean, but he served in the second and third Dutch wars in the Royal Navy, where he was popular with the seamen. As flag-captain to the Earl of Sandwich (Edward Montagu I) he was one of the few who escaped from theRoyal James at the battle of Sole Bay, and was rewarded with a seat on the navy board, for, as he told Samuel Pepys, ‘it is impossible for any man by the bare wages and lawful profits of his place as commander at sea ever to lay up anything for his family’. He was returned for Aldeburgh with Henry Johnson at the first general election of 1679 on the Admiralty interest, and marked ‘base’ on Shaftesbury’s list. In the first Exclusion Parliament he was appointed only to the committee of elections and privileges and to that for the reform of the bankruptcy law. According to Roger Morrice he voted against exclusion, and he was not reelected in the autumn. Although he remained a dissenter, and was reported as attending a conventicle in 1682, he was appointed comptroller and commissioner for victualling, and helped to present a loyal address from Dunwich after the Rye House Plot.3

On James II’s accession Haddock was given the less responsible post of commissioner for old accounts. Nevertheless he was recommended to Henry Goring II as court candidate for Shoreham in 1685, and probably returned unopposed. He was again inactive, being appointed only to the committees to provide carriages for the navy and ordnance and to prohibit the import of gunpowder. In May 1688 he was restored as comptroller, writing: ‘However the King may choose to deal with me (which hitherto hath been extra kind), I shall never forsake my loyalty to him, even to my last breath’.4

It was alleged that Haddock had opposed the dispensing power, but he was continued in office after the Revolution only as ‘a man so conversant with the affairs of the navy’ that Johnson’s son told the Commons ‘the navy would stand still without him’. He was regarded with intense suspicion by the Whigs, and ordered into custody with Sir John Parsons and his partners after complaints about the ‘corrupt and unwholesome victuals’ issued to the fleet. ‘I must not call it injustice in that august assembly what they did to me’, he commented bitterly 20 years later, reckoning that it had cost him about £100 in fees to the serjeant-at-arms ‘and to lawyers soliciting the House of Commons, with expenses of entertainment whilst in custody’. But after a fortnight they were admitted to bail. He was removed from the victualling office, but, after Lord Torrington (Arthur Herbert) had demonstrated his incapacity at the battle of Beachy Head, he was given joint command of the fleet which helped to reduce Cork and Kinsale. This was his last command at sea, but he retained his office of comptroller of the navy, unlike his loyalty to the Stuarts, to his last breath. He died on 26 Jan. 1715, aged 85, and was buried at Leigh. His son Nicholas, also a distinguished seaman, sat for Rochester from 1734 to 1746.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: B. M. Crook

Notes

  • 1. DNB; information from Miss Sonia P. Anderson; London Mar. Lic. ed. Foster, 602; PCC 26 Fagg; CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 197.
  • 2. R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 360; E. Suff. Ro, EE6/1144/13.
  • 3. P. Benton, Hist. Rochford Hundred, 351-2; CSP Dom. 1673, p. 92; Pepys Naval Mins. (Navy Rec. Soc. lx), 26; CSP Dom. 1682, p. 8; Luttrell, i. 278.
  • 4. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 79; Haddock Corresp.(Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxi), 36.
  • 5. Grey, ix. 445; CJ, x. 293; 302; Haddock Corresp. 51-52; Benton, 352.