Warren Lisle

Warren Lisle (c.1695–July 1788) was an English customs officer, active against smugglers. He was mayor of Lyme Regis in 1751, 1754 and 1763, and, near the end of his life, Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis.[1][2]

Life

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He was son of Warren Lisle the elder, searcher of the customs at Weymouth, Dorset.[1] His family was related to the Tuckers, the local Members of Parliament Edward Tucker and John Tucker, and so was connected to Gabriel Steward who married a granddaughter of Edward Tucker.[3]

Lisle took up the same customs position as his father had held, in 1721.[1] From about 1737 he was operating against smugglers in the English Channel with two vessels, from Hengistbury Head. Around 1740 the Commissioners of Customs made Lisle Surveyor of Sloops, for the south coast.[4] By 1747 he was commander of the Cholmondeley sloop, a revenue cutter of 80 tons which he also owned.[5] In July of that year, he took in it two sloops off Bigbury-on-Sea on Devon, with cargoes of tea, brandy, rum and tobacco.[6]

For a period of nearly 40 years, Lisle controlled the coastal revenue vessels, from Portsmouth in the east to Land's End in the west.[7] In 1761, during the Seven Years' War, Lisle in the Cholmondeley (given as Cholmondely) took the French privateer Triumphant from Cherbourg), west of Portland Bill.[8] The cutter was purchased as a 15-year old vessel by the Royal Navy in 1763 and refitted, becoming HMS Cholmondely, commissioned under Skeffington Lutwidge.[9] In 1764 Lisle reported that smuggling was as active as he had known it.[10]

When Lisle resigned his post at Weymouth in 1773, it passed to his son William.[1][11] He left the customs service finally in 1779, then writing a series of reports to Lord Shelburne, the Home Secretary.[12]

Lisle was elected on 7 September 1780 during that year's general election as MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis as locum tenens, aged reportedly 85. He stood down on 21 November to allow his kinsman, Gabriel Steward, to stand for the seat after completing his own term as mayor of the borough (when he had been the local returning officer).[1]

Warren Lisle died in July 1788 at Upwey, Dorset, aged 93.[1]

Family

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Lisle married, secondly, Ruth Clapcott. She was an heiress, one of two daughters of Henry Clapcott of Winterbourne Abbas (died 1716).[1][13] Their children included:[14]

Ruth Lisle left a will of 1790, in which daughters of Warren Lisle's first marriage may be identified: Penelope Nicholls then a widow, Patty Stoford called Patty Stevens in Warren Lisle's will, Betsey wife of Francis Tueksbury. A son Davie in Warren Lisle's will was then in Barbados.[17] John Nicoll, controller of customs at Newport, Rhode Island, married Penelope Lisle, daughter of Warren Lisle.[20] Nicoll, a Loyalist of the American Revolutionary War, left Newport in 1779.[21]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Lisle, Warren (c.1695-1788), of Upway, Dorset. History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  2. ^ Roberts, George (1834). The History and Antiquities of the Borough of Lyme Regis and Charmouth. p. 384.
  3. ^ "Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, 1754-1790. History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  4. ^ Morley, Geoffrey (1983). Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset, 1700-1850. Countryside Books. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-905392-24-0.
  5. ^ Southern History: A Review of the History of Southern England. 1992. Southern History Society. 1993. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-9510891-7-0.
  6. ^ "Letter from Plymouth, July 26". Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal. 1 August 1747. p. 4.
  7. ^ Waugh, Mary (1991). Smuggling in Devon and Cornwall 1700-1850. Countryside Books. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-85306-113-4.
  8. ^ The London Chronicle. 1761. p. 93.
  9. ^ Winfield, Rif (12 December 2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714-1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.
  10. ^ Hoppit, Julian (18 May 2017). Britain's Political Economies. Cambridge University Press. p. 298 note 54. ISBN 978-1-107-01525-8.
  11. ^ Atton, Henry; Holland, Henry H. (June 1968). Kings Customs: An Account Of Maritime Revenue And Contraband Traffic. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7146-1266-9.
  12. ^ Morley, Geoffrey (1983). Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset, 1700-1850. Countryside Books. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-905392-24-0.
  13. ^ Hutchins, John (1774). The history and antiquities of the county of Dorset. Vol. I. London: Printed by W. Bowyer and J. Nichols. p. 303.
  14. ^ Hutchins, John; Shipp, William; Hodson, James Whitworth (1973). The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. Vol. I. EP Pub. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-85409-855-2.
  15. ^ Burrows, Donald; Dunhill, Rosemary; Harris, James (2002). Music and Theatre in Handel's World: The Family Papers of James Harris, 1732-1780. Oxford University Press. pp. 495–496. ISBN 978-0-19-816654-2.
  16. ^ "Weymouth & Melcombe Regis St Mary's Baptisms 1741-1750". www.opcdorset.org.
  17. ^ a b Norris, Hugh; Mayo, Charles Herbert; Weaver, Frederic William (1888). Notes & queries for Somerset and Dorset. Bridport: Printed by C. J. Creed [etc.] p. 77.
  18. ^ Ormerod, George (1819). The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester: Compiled from Original Evidences in Public Offices, the Harleian and Cottonian Mss., Parochial Registers, Private Muniments, Unpublished Ms. Collections of Successive Cheshire Antiquaries, and a Personal Survey of Every Township in the County; Incorporated with a Republication of King's Vale Royal, and Leycester's Cheshire Antiquities. By George Ormerod. Lackington, Hughes. Harding, Mavor, and Jones. p. 357.
  19. ^ Arbuthnot, Harriet (1950). The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820-1832. Vol. II. Macmillan. p. 224.
  20. ^ The New England Notes and Queries. R.H. Tilley. 1890. p. 113.
  21. ^ Turner, Henry Edward; Tilley, Risbrough Hammett (1883). The Rhode Island Historical Magazine. Newport Historical Publishing Company. p. 139.
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