Family and Education

b. 1651, 2nd s. of Sir John Garrard, 2nd Bt., of Lamer; bro. of Sir John Garrard, 3rd Bt.*  m. (1) lic. 16 Oct. 1675, aged 24, Elizabeth, da. of George Poyner of Caldecote, Herts., s.p.; (2) lic. 22 Jan. 1689, Jane (d. 1746), da. of Thomas Bennet*, 7s. (4 d.v.p.) 5da. (1 d.v.p.).  suc. bro. as 4th Bt. 13 Jan. 1701.1

Offices Held

Member, Grocers’ Co., warden 1700–1, master 1701–2; alderman, London 1702–d., sheriff 1702–3, ld. mayor 1709–10.2

Freeman, Hertford 1703, St. Albans Sept.–Nov. 1705.3

Gov. workhouse, London corp. of the poor by 1708; visitor, St. Albans school 1714; gov. St. Thomas’ Hosp. 1719; pres. Bethlehem and Bridewell Hospitals 1721–d.4

Biography

Although a London merchant, as early as 1681 Garrard had acquired land adjacent to the family estate at Lamer. His business activities seem to have been concentrated in Watling Steet, in St. Augustine’s parish, although he resided in the neighbouring parish of St. John the Evangelist until at least 1695. He was also described in 1691 as carrying on his business in Friday Street, Cheapside. In a tract entitled A New Year’s Gift for the Tories, Garrard was described as one of ‘Roger Lestrange’s† gang’, i.e. a High Tory. He subscribed £3,000 to the land bank in 1696. On his brother’s death, Garrard inherited considerable country estates, but he continued to reside and carry on business in London, holding office in the trained bands and, of course, achieving high civic honour. However, he entered Parliament for a Buckinghamshire seat, his niece having married Montagu Drake*, being returned at a by-election for Amersham on the Drake interest in March 1701. During his first session in the House he acted as a teller on 17 June against a motion to receive the report of the bill for the relief of imprisoned debtors. After the session was over he was blacklisted as one of the Members who had opposed preparations for war with France. With the Amersham seats reserved for John Drake and Lord Cheyne (Hon. William), Garrard was not returned again for the borough until a by-election in November 1702. He voted on 13 Feb. 1703 against agreeing with the Lords’ amendments to the bill enlarging the time for taking the oath of abjuration. In the following session he was forecast as likely to support the Tack and duly voted for it on 28 Nov. 1704.5

Re-elected in 1705, Garrard was classed as ‘True Church’, no doubt because of his stance on the Tack, and he voted on 25 Oct. against the Court candidate for Speaker. On 2 Nov. the return of Cheyne and Garrard was petitioned against, but there seems little doubt that Garrard was the intended target. Lord Treasurer Godolphin (Sidney†) assured Robert Harley* on this point, noting, ‘I am sure there is not a more perverse man against us in the whole House’, and urged Court supporters to vote against Garrard when the petition was heard in committee. Upon hearing of Garrard’s victory in this forum by 11 votes the Duke of Somerset expressed his regret that ‘Sir Tacker Garratt [sic]’ had carried it. The full House confirmed the committee’s decision on 1 Dec. when 20 Court Tories deserted the administration to support him. This prompted Lord Halifax (Charles Montagu*) to tell the Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill†) that even Garrard’s friends thought him ‘one of the most passionate men they ever knew; and that he has railed at lord treasurer. A decision by the Commons on 27 Nov. also brought to an end his short-lived freedom of St. Albans. Interestingly, he signed the Hertfordshire quarter sessions address in 1706, offering fulsome praise for Marlborough’s victory at Ramillies. In June 1707 Garrard received a DCL from Oxford. However, on two lists of 1708 he was classed as a Tory.6

Re-elected unopposed in 1708, Garrard’s election as lord mayor in September 1709 presaged an increase in his legislative activity in the 1709–10 session. He was appointed on 21 Nov. to draft the bill regulating the assize of bread, which he helped to manage through the House. He was named to another drafting committee to improve the Thames Fishery (1 Dec.). More important, as lord mayor he helped to precipitate the Sacheverell impeachment which ultimately brought down the Whig ministry. At his invitation on 5 Nov. Dr Sacheverell preached before him in St. Paul’s on the subject of ‘false brethren’. When the court of aldermen met on 12 Nov. they refused permission for the sermon to be printed and were prevented from proceeding further against Sacheverell when Garrard adjourned the debate. The Perils of False Brethren later appeared in print ‘by your lordship’s command’, complete with a fulsome dedication to Garrard. Controversy ensued, with the sermon being censured by the Commons on 13 Dec. as a ‘malicious, scandalous and seditious libel’, the House being ‘in such a ferment, that nothing would serve but to order my lord mayor to attend in his place and expel him the House (from whence he was absent)’. Sacheverell was called before the Commons on the following day, when he claimed he had received Garrard’s permission to print the sermon. This Garrard denied ‘upon his honour’, and thereby avoided being sent to the Tower. Contemporary opinion was not impressed by his performance:

The lord mayor, Sir Samuel Garrard, has slipped his neck out of the collar, but how honourable I can’t say, for Sacheverell affirms before the House, after Sir Samuel Garrard has deny’d ’twas printed by his command, that the day he preached Sir Samuel complimented him upon his sermon and took him home with him to dinner in his own coach, and after dinner told him he hoped he should see it in print, which he took for a sufficient command from a superior to an inferior, and several other circumstances which I believe made most of the House believe ’twas the lord mayor’s desire to have it printed, but they were very willing to let him scrabble off, for no part of the city is to be disobliged now money is to be paid in.

Likewise, White Kennet felt the Commons were ‘obliged to believe their own Member as a House, though as private persons they might give greater credit to the doctor in that point’, and Ralph Bridges felt that Sacheverell’s testimony had ‘saved’ Garrard. Generally, it was thought that Garrard ‘did swerve from the truth in his examination before the Commons’. Notwithstanding the damage the affair had done to his reputation, Garrard did vote against the impeachment.7

As lord mayor, Garrard took no action at first to quell the rioting which accompanied the Sacheverell trial, but at the personal command of the Queen on 30 Mar. 1710 the City magistrates banned bonfires and the sale of seditious literature. Garrard defied the Commons’ order to attend the ceremonial burning of Sacheverell’s sermon by the common hangman and then counter-attacked by carrying an address in common council on 5 Apr. against

the daring and insolent attacks that have been publicly made on our most happy constitution (of which your Majesty’s royal prerogative is so essential a part) by infusing republican notions into the minds of your subjects by printing and publishing seditious and scandalous books and pamphlets.

As lord mayor, Garrard also had an important role to play in June 1710 when Tory aldermen undertook to sustain a new administration with a voluntary loan. The inglorious figure Garrard had cut during Sacheverell’s initial examination by the Commons probably caused him to stand down at Amersham. Nevertheless, he was active in electioneering both in London, where he voted for the Tory ticket, and in Northamptonshire, where he wrote to Floore in support of the Tory candidates for the county. He furnished supplies for the ill-fated expedition to Canada, for which he was not paid, and by 1712 the commissioners for sick and wounded owed him for three years’ worth of supplies. In January 1713 all debts due to him were paid by the government out of South Sea stock. He again voted for the Tory ticket in the London poll of 1713. In 1715 his son had contact with the Whig club organizing elections for the common council when, apropos Aldersgate ward, the club noted ‘Captain Garrard to speak to his father’. Garrard continued to take an interest in politics, voting in the Hertfordshire election of 1722 for the two moderate Tory candidates. He died, ‘the father of the City’, on 10 Mar. 1725, aged about 74, his will of 1723 still mentioning his freehold in Watling Street. His son Benet represented Amersham from 1761 to 1767.8

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Eveline Cruickshanks / Stuart Handley

Notes

• 1. IGI, London; Mar. Lic. Fac. Off. (Harl. Soc. xxiv), 134, 192; London Mag. 1746, p. 425; Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 515, 522; Boyer, Pol. State, xxv. 356.
• 2. Beaven, Aldermen, ii. 120.
• 3. Herts. RO, Hertford bor. recs. 25/105; St. Albans Pub. Lib. St. Albans bor. recs. 299.
• 4. E. Hatton, A New View of London (1708), 755; VCH Herts. ii. 66; J. Aubrey, Surr. v. 310; Beaven, 120.
• 5. VCH Herts. ii. 299–300; London Rec. Soc. ii. 116; Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 973; DNB; NLS, Advocates’ mss, Bank of Eng. pprs. 31.1.7, list of subscribers.
• 6. Bull. IHR, xlv. 47, 48; Parlty. Lists 18th Cent. ed. Newman, 78; Herts. RO, Panshanger mss. D/EP/F56, ff. 66–67; Herts. Co. Recs. vii. 68.
• 7. Ailesbury Mems. ii. 619; G. Holmes, Trial of Sacheverell, 71–73, 91–92; Add. 17677 DDD, f. 364; Wentworth Pprs. 100; Glos. RO, Hardwicke Ct. mss, Lloyd pprs. box 74, Kennet to Bp. Lloyd, 17 Dec. 1710; BL, Trumbull Alphab. mss 53, Bridges to Sir William Trumbull*, 14 Dec. 1710; Bank of Eng. Morice mss, Sir Nicholas Morice, 2nd Bt.*, to Joseph Moyle*, 30 Dec. 1710; E. Curll, A Free Conference between Timothy and Philatheus (1710), 11.
• 8. Holmes, 160, 168, 233; Boyer, Anne Annals, ix. 161, 194–5; Sharpe, London and the Kingdoms, ii. 635; Holmes, Pol. in Age of Anne, 168; Beaven, Aldermen, i. 291; London Poll 1710 (IHR); Northants. RO, Isham mss IC 3770, Garrard to Sir Justinian Isham, 4th Bt.*, 21 Sept. 1710; Cal. Treas. Bks. xxvi. 115, 121, 124; xxviii. 7; London Rec. Soc. xvii. 87, 33; Herts. Poll 1722 (IHR); PCC 86 Romney; The Gen. n.s. vi. 182.