Family and Education

Offices Held

Mayor, Bridgwater 1580-1, 1592-3, 1601-2.

Biography

For most of his life Bocking was active in his town’s affairs. In April 1588 the port towns were ordered to furnish ships to meet the threat of Spanish invasion. Bocking fitted out the William which was ordered to join Drake’s division at Plymouth. This ship, it has been suggested, was the 70 ton ‘bark of Bridgwater’, captain John Smyth, which was in the lord admiral’s division and thus in the Queen’s pay. Bocking claimed £378 from all parts of the county: in 1592 he was still owed £198. In 1593, when mayor, he was returned to Parliament in the senior Bridgwater seat instead of the recorder, as was customary. He was presumably the Mr. Bucking named to a committee on wine casks, 28 Mar., and, as a Bridgwater burgess he might have sat on committees on cloth and kerseys on 15 and 23 Mar. Together with his fellow-Member William Thomas, he was paid £16 for attending in London for 60 days. He again represented the borough in 1604, dying in the following year.

Bridgwater archives nos. 1474, 1478, 1581, 1587; VCH Som. ii. 256; APC, xxii. 222-3; D’Ewes, 501, 507.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: W.J.J.

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.