Family and Education

b. 15 Mar. 1638, ist s. of Sir Edward Mosley, 1st Bt. of Alport Lodge, Lancs. and Rolleston by Mary, da. of Sir Gervase Cutler of Stainborough Hall, Yorks. educ. Brasenose, Oxf. 1655. m. Apr. 1665, Catherine, da. of Sir William Grey^†, 1st Baron Grey of Warke, s.p. suc. fa. Dec. 1657.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Lancs. Jan. 1660-d., j.p. Mar. 1660-d., commr. for militia, Mar. 1660, corporations 1662-3.2

Biography

Mosley’s great-grandfather bought the manor of Manchester and became lord mayor of London in 1599. His great-uncle, attorney-general to the duchy of Lancaster, sat for Preston under James I. His father, who was made a commissioner of array, entertained the royalist general, Lord Strange, during the siege of Manchester in 1642, as a result of which Alport Lodge was demolished by the parliamentary forces, and in 1643 he was taken prisoner with a royalist detachment by Sir William Brereton at Middlewich. He compounded in 1646 at a fine of £4,000, and was assessed at a further £1,500 by the committee for the advance of money, of which he paid half in 1649. Mosley inherited large estates, including Hough End in Lancashire as well as Rolleston, but these were much impaired by his father’s financial extravagance as well as losses during the Civil War which he computed at £10,000. Through his mother he acquired Bradsal Park in Derbyshire, as well as considerable property in Leicestershire.3

Mosley was pricked sheriff of Lancashire in November 1660 but was replaced a month later, no doubt to facilitate his candidature for Mitchell, which his friend and legal adviser John Alleyn was representing in the Convention. He was allowed to sit after a double return and became a moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, in which he was appointed to 49 committees. His private bill for the purchase of Hulme was reported by Francis Goodricke on 29 June 1661. He was appointed to the committees for the drainage of the fens, the corporations bill and the bill to discharge loyalists of interest above three per cent in the same session. Hulme became his principal residence when his estate bill received the royal assent. On 17 Feb. 1662 he was appointed to the committee on the bill to restore the Earl of Derby’s estates in Flintshire, and in 1663 to committees to consider the revenue of the crown and to prevent meetings of sectaries. He acted as teller on five occasions, of which the most important was against the bill to discover illegal sales of offices on 2 May 1663. In 1662 he was recommended to Lord Derby as deputy lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, but, as a result of what seems to have been a local quarrel, he was rejected by the King as disaffected, despite Derby’s commendation of his loyalty and zeal. He died on 14 Oct. 1665, and was buried at Didsbury, where he endowed the living and a day school. His estates were inherited by a cousin, but the family parliamentary record was not resumed till 1806.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Mosley Memoranda (Chetham Soc. n.s. xlvii) 11-12.
• 2. SP 29/61/157.
• 3. Sir W. Mosley, Fam. Mems. 2-20; Didsbury and Charlton Chapels (Chetham Soc. lxii), 147; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1060; Cal. Comm. Adv. Mon. 670.
• 4. CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 483, 495, 524-5; 1663-4, pp. 19, 69; SP29/61/85; Didsbury and Charlton Chapels, 61, 96-97.