Family and Education

b. c.1612, 1st s. of John Ramsden, merchant, of Hull by Margaret, da. of William Barnard, merchant, of Hull. m. Joyce. da. of Edmund Wynn, Draper, of London and Thornton Curtis, Lincs., 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1637.1

Offices Held

Alderman, Hull 1640-50, chamberlain 1640-1, sheriff 1644-5, mayor 1648-9, commr. for militia 1648, assessment, Hull 1649, Hull and Yorks. (E. Riding) Aug. 1660-1, commr. for sewers (E. Riding) 1659, Sept. 1660, j.p. July 1660-d.2

Biography

There had been Ramsdens in Hull since at least 1302, but no connected pedigree is possible as the name is not uncommon in Yorkshire. Ramsden’s father was second only to the Thompsons of York as a cloth exporter through the port, and died of the plague during his second mayoralty. Ramsden himself presumably supported Parliament in the Civil War, but was removed from office in 1650 for refusing to take the oath to the Commonwealth. He first represented the borough in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and was re-elected in 1660, when the republican candidates were overwhelmingly defeated. There is no evidence that he attended the first session of the Convention, though he joined his colleague Andrew Marvell at Westminster in December and reported to the corporation on parliamentary proceedings. He made no recorded speeches and was named to no committees. At the general election of 1661 he finished bottom of the poll, and he declined reinstatement as alderman. The date of his death is unknown, but his name disappeared from the commission of the peace in 1666.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / P. A. Bolton / Basil Duke Henning

Notes

• 1. Fam. Min. Gent. (Harl. Soc. xxxix), 936; Clay, Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. i. 92; London Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. xcii), 15.
• 2. Hull corp. bench bk. 5, ff. 642, 801, 822; C181/6/404, 7/45.
• 3. J. Tickell, Kingston-upon-Hull, 496; VCH Yorks. E. Riding, i. 106, 118, 142, 156; Hull corp. mss L646; Marvell, ed. Margoliouth, ii. 8-14.