Family and Education

bap. 6 Sept. 1635, o.s. of William Deedes, mercer, of Hythe by 1st w. Bennet, da. of Robert Smith, mercer, of Margate. m. Anne (d.1698), da. of Richard Bate of Lydd, 4s. 4da. suc. fa. 1653.1

Offices Held

Capt. of militia ft. Cinque Ports by 1673-82, 1689-d.; commr. for assessment, Kent 1673-80, Hythe 1679-80, Kent, Hythe and Lydd 1689-90, Pembroke 1690; j.p. Kent 1676-80, 1689-92; freeman, Hythe by 1679, mayor 1680-1, 1684-5, 1690-1, jurat 1682-3.2

Biography

Deedes came of a family settled in Kent by the end of the 16th century. His father appears to have been the first to live at Hythe where he became a jurat and captain of militia under the Commonwealth. Deedes himself was granted arms in 1653, and married into a leading Cinque Ports family. He first became active in parliamentary politics at a by-election at Hythe in 1673. He defeated Sir William Honeywood at the first general election of 1679, and was marked ‘worthy’ on Shaftesbury’s list. But in the first Exclusion Parliament he was appointed only to the committees to report on a petition from five foreign merchants and to consider the security bill. He was absent from the division on the exclusion bill, and stood down at the next election for personal reasons. Nevertheless he was removed from the county magistracy in 1680 and lost his militia commission two years later. When a smuggler was killed by a customs official early in 1685, Deedes falsified evidence at the inquest and secured parliamentary privilege by returning himself to James II’s Parliament. But the lord high steward vetoed his nomination as one of the bearers of the canopy at the coronation, his election was declared void without his having taken any part in the proceedings of the House, and on 21 July he resigned as mayor.3

Deedes was re-elected in 1689, and allowed to officiate at the coronation of William and Mary. He helped to apprehend two Jacobite propagandists in the summer. In the Convention he served on no committees, though on 31 July 1689 he acted as teller against the adjournment of the debate on free trade in woollen manufactures, and he supported the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations. He lent £250 to the Government in 1690, but continued to give practical expression to his free trade views. In May 1692 it was reported that 14 persons in his employ beat and wounded customs officers who tried to prevent the transport of 16 bags of wool from his barn. According to a Treasury minute ‘the seizure was legal as being of reasonable suspicion, and the rescuing thereof was a transgression of the law’.4

Deedes was buried at Hythe on 9 Sept. 1692. His will indicates that he was in comfortable circumstances. He left portions of £1,500 for his two surviving daughters and bequeathed to his wife and sons considerable properties in and around Hythe, lands in Oxfordshire, and six Pembrokeshire advowsons. But it was not until 1807 that another member of the family was returned for Hythe.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Basil Duke Henning

Notes

• 1. Cussans, Herts. Hertford, 42; Hasted, Kent, vii. 238; Canterbury Mar. Lic. ii. 278.
• 2. Hythe assembly bk. 1649-83, f. 437; G. Wilks, Cinque Port Barons, 88-89; W. Boys, Hist. Sandwich, ii. 813; Stowe 745, f. 67; CSP Dom. 1682, p. 172; 1689-90, p. 235.
• 3. CSP Dom. 1650 p. 511; 1685, p. 164; Stowe 746, ff. 14-19; Cal. Treas. Bks. viii. 391; Suss. Arch. Colls. xv. 193.
• 4. Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 1623, 1699, 2001; Suss. Arch. Colls. xv. 209; HMC Finch, ii. 224.
• 5. PCC 183 Fane.