John Hutchinson (Colonel)

Colonel John Hutchinson (1615–1664) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1648 to 1653 and in 1660. He was one of the Puritan leaders, and fought in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War. As a member of the high court of justice in 1649 he was 13th of 59 Commissioners to sign the death-warrant of King Charles I. Although he avoided the fate of some of the other regicides executed after the Restoration, he was exempted from the general pardon, only to the extent that he could not hold a public office. In 1663, he was accused of involvement in the Farnley Wood Plot, was incarcerated and died in prison.

Hutchinson was the son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson (1587–1643) of Owthorpe Hall and Margaret daughter of Sir John Byron of Newstead {she was a descendent of Sir William Sidney}. He was baptised on 18 September 1615. He was educated at Nottingham Grammar School, Lincoln Grammar School and Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1636 he entered Lincoln's Inn to study law, but devoted himself to music and divinity rather than the study of law.

Like his father, Sir Thomas Hutchinson, who represented Nottinghamshire in the Long parliament, he took, the parliamentary side. He first distinguished himself by preventing Lord Newark, the lord-lieutenant of the county, from seizing the county powder-magazine for the king's service. He next accepted a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the regiment raised by Colonel Francis Pierrepont, and became one of the parliamentary committee for Nottinghamshire.

On 29 June 1643, at the order of the committee and of Sir John Meldrum, Hutchinson undertook the command of Nottingham Castle; he received from Lord Fairfax in the following November a commission to raise a foot regiment, and was finally appointed by Parliament governor of both town and castle. The town was unfortified, the garrison weak and ill-supplied, with the committee torn by political and personal feuds.

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