Family and Education

b. c.1628, s. of Robert Crumpe, yeoman, of Rodley, Westbury-on-Severn, Glos. m. Margaret, da. and coh. of William Crabbe, merchant, of Bristol, 1s. 2da. Kntd. 18 Oct. 1681.1

Offices Held

Freeman, Bristol 1653, common councilman 1661-75, sheriff 1665-6, alderman 1675-d., mayor 1677-8; commr. for assessment, Bristol 1673-80, 1689-90, dep. lt. 1685-Feb. 1688, member of merchant venturers 1692, warden 1694-5.2

Biography

Crumpe was described as a gentleman’s son when he was apprenticed to a Bristol soap-boiler in 1646. He was a founder member of the royalist Gloucestershire Society during the Interregnum, and was knighted as a Tory in 1681. By this time he had become the leading figure in the West Indies trade. One of the ‘good’ aldermen, in the eyes of a court supporter in 1683, he supported the surrender of the Bristol charter, and was reappointed. An anonymous letter charged him with defrauding the customs in 1684, but the commissioners were apparently satisfied with his explanation. He was returned unopposed to James II’s Parliament, in which he was appointed only to the committee to revive the Leather Export Act. He received £17 13s.4d. in parliamentary wages from the corporation, who made it clear to him that they expected a ‘sedulous care’ in their concerns, which he duly exercised by persuading Thomas Bruce, Lord Bruce that excessive taxation on the West Indian plantations would be ‘of fatal consequence’. He failed, however, to secure the reimbursement of the £470 spent by the city during Monmouth’s rebellion. He gave negative replies on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, and was removed from the lieutenancy. However, he was reported ‘right’ by the King’s electoral agents and recommended as an alternative court candidate in 1688. He died on 14 Jan. 1700, and was buried at St. Thomas’s, the only member of his family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes

• 1. J. Smith, Men and Armour for Glos. 73; Bristol RO, apprenticeship bk. 1640-58, f. 99; Le Neve’s Knights (Harl. Soc. viii), 358; PCC 20 Noel.
• 2. Bristol RO, burgess bk. 1651-62, f. 10 v; A. B. Beaven, Bristol Lists, 186, 201, 224, 284; Merchant Venturers (Bristol Rec. Soc. xvii), 33.
• 3. Bristol RO, Jeffries Coll. 2, p. 101; SP29/422/127, 218; Ailesbury Mems. 106; Cal. Treas. Bks. vii. 997, 1213; J. Evans, Hist. Bristol, 232; J. Latimer, Bristol in the 17th Century, 427; T. Garrard, Edward Colston the Philanthropist (1852), 371.