George Lilburne

Who was George Lilburne?

George Lilburne was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1654. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.

Lilburne was the son of John Lilburne of Thickley Punchardon, and his wife Isabel Wortley, and was baptised at Auckland St Andrew on 16 January 1586. He settled at Sunderland and was probably a merchant adventurer and involved in the coal trade. Like others of his family he became heavily involved in politics. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he was Mayor of Sunderland and was the only opponent of the other magistrates of Durham and Northumberland who met and formed themselves into Commissioners of Array for the King to raise transport and supplies. As a result, Lilburne was imprisoned and kept at Durham and then York. Sunderland remained Royalist until captured for Parliament by the Scottish army in 1644. Parliament then wanted to restore the coal trade and bargained with the Royalists for the release of George Lilburne in exchange for a prominent Royalist prisoner. He found the mines in very poor condition. He was then the only magistrate in Sunderland and sat on all the committees of sequestration.