Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Garraway, Henry
GARRAWAY, Sir HENRY (1575–1646), lord mayor of London, son of Sir William Garraway, chief farmer of the customs, and his wife, Elizabeth Anderton, was baptised in London at the church of St. Peter-le-Poer, Broad Street, 17 April 1575. He was one of seventeen children, and was brought up in the city of London, where his family had long resided (Visitation of London, 1633-1634, Harl. Soc. xv. 304). In his youth, after completing his education, he travelled, according to his own account, in all parts of Christendom. He afterwards carried on an extensive trade with the Low Countries, France, Italy, the East Indies, Greenland, Russia, and Turkey, and in 1639 was governor of each of the great companies trading with the three last-named countries (Heywood, Londini Status Pacatus, 1639, epistle dedicatory). Garraway was admitted a livery man of the Drapers' Company by patrimony, 7 Dec. 1607; he served the office of warden in 1623, and that of master in 1627 and 1639. He became sheriff in 1627, and afterwards alderman of the ward of Vintry, removing to Broad Street ward, 22 Jan. 1638.
Garraway was elected lord mayor on Michaelmas day 1639, and his inauguration pageant, written by Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, was entitled 'Londini Status Pacatus, or London's Peaceable Estate.' Copies of this scarce little book are in the British Museum and the Guildhall Library, and it is reprinted in Heywood's collected works (edit. 1874, v. 355-75). The expenses of the pageant were borne by the Company of Drapers, the mechanical devices or 'triumphs' being executed by John and Mathias Christmas (ib. p. 374). On 4 April 1640 he writes to Secretary Vane that, in obedience to the king's letter and the council's directions for impressing two hundred soldiers to reinforce the garrison of Berwick, he had issued a precept under which about one hundred idle persons found in taverns, inns, and alehouses had been sent to Bridewell . These were, however, released, in compliance with a further letter received from Secretary Vane (Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1640, p. 7). The London apprentices having attacked Laud's palace at Lambeth on 9 May, Garraway effectually suppressed the tumult, and inflicted summary punishment upon the ringleaders (Lloyd, Memoires, 1668, p. 633). The council in two letters (12 and 14 May) ordered him to double the watches in the city, and to call out the trained bands when he should think necessary (State Papers, Dom. 1640, pp. 150, 162, 167). From news-letters written by Edmund Rossingham, dated 14 April and 12 May 1640, it appears that Garraway was in frequent communication at this time with the king and his council in reference to loans to be raised in the city for the king. Each of the aldermen was to furnish a list of the richest inhabitants of his ward, classed according to their wealth. Garraway was summoned with the aldermen before the council (10 May). He hesitated to comply with the king's request, and Charles ordered him to resign his sword and collar of office, but quickly restored them. Finally, four aldermen for refusing to aid the king were sent to prison (ib. pp. 31-2, 41, 155, 170). Another order from the council, dated 31 May, required the lord mayor to raise a regiment of four thousand men for the king's service in the north. After some debates the common council refused either to raise or to equip the force, and Garraway was left to his independent exertions to furnish the men required (ib. pp. 248-9, 255, 308). In August a demand was made upon the livery companies for a loan, and Garraway took an active interest in its promotion, rating his own company, the Drapers, for 4,500ɭ. (ib. p. 554). Garraway endeavoured in June to levy ship-money in the city in the face of bitter opposition from the common council. The sheriffs flatly refused their assistance, whereupon he personally distrained upon the goods of a linendraper who would not pay the tax (ib. p. 307). Again in August he unsuccessfully proposed a loan and present for the king (ib. p. 618). He also vainly endeavoured to dissuade the corporation from petitioning the king to call a parliament (ib. 1640-1, pp. 73, 90).
His shrievalty and mayoralty were kept at his newly built mansion in Broad Street, the Drapers' Company giving him towards its 'beautifying' one hundred nobles on the former and one hundred marks on the latter occasion. Garraway was knighted by the king at Whitehall on 31 May 1640 (Le Neve, Pedigree of Knights, p. 195). On 29 Oct. a new lord may or had to be elected, and every effort was made by the king to secure one favourable to his cause, but a precedent of three hundred years forbade the refusal to sanction the citizens' choice except on the ground of poverty or infirmity. Garraway was heartily with the king, and the council desired to secure his re-election or the choice of Sir William Acton. Garraway was not re-elected, but exerted himself to the last to prevent the final rupture between the city and the king. A common hall was held on 13 Jan. 1642 to receive the king's answer to the city petition, when Pym and others came down from the parliament to prevent the city from coming to terms with Charles. The meeting was adjourned till 17 Jan., when Garraway answered the arguments of Pym in a clever and fearless speech, which completely silenced the supporters of the parliament, and carried the king's cause with the assembled citizens by acclamation. Several editions of the speech were published, including a translation into Dutch. On his way home he was accompanied by throngs of enthusiastic followers, whom he had some difficulty in keeping within the bounds of public order (Speech, postscript) . The cause of the parliament, however, eventually prevailed with the citizens Garraway was dismissed, 10 April 1643, by House of Commons from his offices of governor of the Turkey and other companies (Journal, iii. 37), and was expelled from the court of aldermen on 2 May 1643 (Rep. 56, f. 166 b). On Saturday 5 Nov. following the captains of the city trained bands arrested many of the wealthiest royalists in the city, including Garraway and his brother, for not contributing to the parliament's demand for money, and for ‘other misdemeanours’ (A Catalogue of sundrie Knights, Aldermen, … who are in custody … by Authority from the Parliament, 7 Nov. 1642; broadsheet in the Guildhall Library, Choice Scraps, London, v. 2, No. 16). Garraway's default was for 300l. (House of Commons' Journal, iii. 45). Lloyd says ‘he was tossed as long as he lived from prison to prison, and his estate conveyed from one rebel to another’ (Memoires, 1668, p. 633). He was still, however, governor of the Russia Company on 1 June 1644, when the House of Commons ordered his discharge from that office, and at the same time imprisoned him in Dover Castle during their pleasure (Journal, iii. 514). Garraway did not, however, die in prison, but in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street (Burial Registers of that parish), and was buried on 24 July 1646 in the church of St. Peter-le-Poer, Broad Street. His will, dated 8 March 1644, was proved in the P. C. C. 30 July 1646 (107, Twisse).
He lived in Broad Street, near Drapers' Hall, and in 1616 petitioned the company for a lease of his own house and another adjoining their hall, offering to rebuild the house in a substantial manner. This he did at a cost of over 1,000l., erecting the front ‘of bricke and stone done by daie woorke substantiall,’ and in November 1628 the company granted him a lease of seventy years, at a yearly rent of 9l. (Drapers' Company's records). Garraway himself asserts that he was often a member of the House of Commons (Speech, 1642), but there is no record of the constituency which he represented.
He married Margaret, daughter of Henry Clitherow, a London merchant, who was buried on 25 June 1656 in St. Peter's Church, Broad Street. Garraway had ten children, William, John, Thomas, Elizabeth, Margaret, Ann, Katherine, Henry, Richard, and Mary, of whom the last three died in their childhood. From his daughter Elizabeth, who married Rowland Hale of King's Walden, Hertfordshire, Viscount Melbourne was descended (Clutterbuck, Hertfordshire, iii. 133).
To his three sons he left large estates in Sussex, Kent, Devonshire, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Yorkshire, which they seem to have obtained after his death without interference from the parliament, but difficulties were raised by the commissioners for sequestrations in Cornwall about some of his property in that county. The commissioners alleged that Garraway died a delinquent in prison for assisting the king against the parliament, and that all his family were known enemies of the parliament, a statement which John and Thomas Garraway in their reply assert to be scandalous and untrue (Royalist Composition Papers, 1st ser., xxviii. 843–870, passim). The following editions of the ‘Speech’ and its rejoinders are known: 1. ‘The Loyal Citizen revived; a speech … at a Common Hall, January 17, upon occasion of a speech by Mr. Pym at the reading of His Majesties answer to the late petition,’ 1642, folio sheet. Another edition, with a letter ‘from a scholler in Oxfordshire,’ &c., London, 1643, 4to. Reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ ed. 1744 and 1808, vol. v. 2. ‘Oratie ghedaen door Alderman Garraway,’ &c., Amsterdam, 1643, 4to. This is a Dutch translation of the 4to edition. 3. ‘A briefe Answer to a scandalous pamphlet intituled “A Speech,”’ &c. [anon.], London, 15 Feb. 1643, 4to.
[Gardiner's History of England, ix. 130, 153; information respecting the family kindly supplied by R. Garraway Rice, esq.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.133
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 13 | ii | 14 f.e. | Garraway, Sir Henry: for when Garraway read It is commonly stated in error that then Garraway |
| 9 f.e. | after acclamation, insert Garraway's alleged speech was a tract written by Hyde for publication. | ||
| 7 f.e. | for On his way home he read The writer of the published oration fancifully asserted that Garraway on his way home |