MRP: Raworth family

Robert Raworth

Biography

Robert Raworth’s family was from Dover in East Kent, just a few miles from the Oxenden and Master family homes in Deane and East Langdon. The family had a strong legal tradition, and an interest in scholarship. The youngest of three brothers, Robert appears to have been the most commercially successful. The same age as Elizabeth Dalyson he provided legal services to the Dallison and to the Oxenden family for more than forty years (1631-1675).

The family interest in scholarship is seen in Francis Raworth senior’s explicit bequests of books to two of his sons, and the bequest of a Life of Martyrs to his daughter; in Robert Raworth’s adolescent poetry; and in the marriage of his sister Elizabeth to a German diplomat and poet, the Stuttgart born Georg Rodolph Weckherlin.

There were at least three lawyers in the immediate family: Robert; his elder brother, Francis (junior); and Robert’s father, also named Francis (senior). His other brother, Thomas, was a rector in Norfolk. Robert was admitted to Gray’s Inn on July 20th 1633. It is not clear where and when his elder brother and father received their legal training, but both practiced law in Kent. Francis (junior)’s son, also named Francis, was an exact legal contemporary of Elizabeth Dalyson’s son, Maximilian. Both were admitted to Gray’s Inn on the same day in May 1650.

Robert’s own legal career showed progression at Gray’s Inn through the troubled 1630s, 1640s, and 1650s, and reached its peak in the 1660s. Made barrister-at-law in 1640, a position James Master also achieved at Gray’s Inn, he progressed to ancient in 1658, and bencher in 1664. By the 1660s a partial reconstruction of his client list shows county gentry and nobility from across England, well beyond Kent and London. He acquired an estate in Berkshire towards the end of his career. Yet, though commercially and socially successful in terms of his client list, he was not knighted.

He married Katherine Spelman, from Haydon, Norfolk, a family with strong legal connections. Many Spelmans had been admitted to Gray’s Inn throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Whilst Katherine's father, Sir Henry Spelman, was a Norfolk historian and antiquarian, others were practising lawyers. His brother-in-law, Robert Whitfield (alt. Whitfeild), was another Kent man from Tenterden or Bletchingley, who was already a reader at Gray’s Inn in 1633 and who was later appointed serjeant-at-law. Robert Raworth may have clerked for Whitefield early in his career, since Whitefield and raworth both appear as witnesses on Sir Maximilian Dallison's will, with Whitefield in the most prominent, and Raworth in the least prominent, position.

Normally industrious, organised and positive, Raworth’s character had a melancholy side. Writing to Sir George Oxenden in April 1663 from Gray’s Inn he wrote unusually about personal matters. Referring to the fact that he himself had never been overseas he expressed admiration for Sir George, who had spent more than half his life outside England. He wrote of illness (gout), a disease which also afflicted Sir Henry Oxenden in the 1660s, and his fears of death. He would have been in his early fifties at the time.

Robert Raworth's name appears in a series of estate transactions, acting as a lawyer for various parties, sometimes with other lawyers and sometimes alone. For example, he and Anthony Crofts appear in a bargain and sale of land at Stowe, Cornwall, in 1652, with the other party being John Grenville, heir of Basil Grenville.

Father & brothers

His father and elder brother were prominent in the administration of Dover and the Cinque Ports, as town clerks of Dover, for a period of more than fifty years (1601-1657), with good connections in London to court, legal and commercial circles [TBC]. The town clerk role appears to have involved legal as well as commercial and administrative tasks.

Francis Raworth (senior) appears to have had a role as as an undersherriff and as an attorney prior to his appointment as Dover town clerk. In Kent records he is undersheriff for [Dover: TBC] in 1599. In the records of the Kent Quarter Sessions of July 1601, which were held in Maidstone, he acted as attorney for the defence of a gentleman client. He was probably appointed Dover town clerk in the same year. Robert’s elder brother was Recorder of the Admiralty Court and Chancery for the Cinque ports, as well as town clerk for Dover. It has not been established when he took over from this father as town clerk.

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Primary sources

9th April 1663, Letter from Robert Raworth to Sir GO
Will of Robert Raworth of Grays Inn, Middlesex 18 July 1676 PROB 11/351 Bence 55 - 108

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Possible primary sources

C 3/458/23 Short title: Raworth v Edlyn. Plaintiffs: Robert Raworth. Defendants: Henry Edlyn and others. Subject: property in Deptford, Kent. Document type: bill only. 1651
C 6/4/166 Short title: Raworth v Browne. Plaintiffs: Robert Raworth and others. Defendants: Thomas Browne, Cecily Browne and Mary Browne. Subject: property in Croft, and Inby, Lincolnshire. Document type: answer only. 1651
C 9/423/74 Raworth v. Tampkind 1664
C 10/163/12 Bourchier v. Frankland, Newcomb, Raworth: Middx 1671
C 10/106/108 Philip Sidney Viscount Lisle , Robert Raworth and Richard Nelmes v Charles Cornwallis: unspecified manor and others. Answer 1672
C 10/81/72 Moore v Twisden, Tregonwell, Raworth, Buckland, Wanley and others: Kent 1666
C 10/74/73 Pinder, Wiche, Buch, Raworth and Skipwith v. Watts: Herts 1664
C 10/14/105 Sir William Monson knight v Philip [Smythe] Viscount Strangford, John Fotherly, Robert Raworth and Thomas Marsh: manor of Grafton Underwood, Northants. Bill and three answers 1652

BL, BL, Raworth (Robert). of Dover. Elegy, distich and anagram on E. Trumbull 1624 Engl. and Lat.. BL, Add. 72439 f. 139
BL, Raworth (Francis). brother of R. Raworth. Letter to F. Raworth from R. Raworth 1628, Add. 72439 f. 113

BL, Raworth (Robert). Witnessed, in 1670, Add. 61490 f. 195