Thomas Pilkington

Sir Thomas Pilkington (d. 1691) was an English merchant and Whig politician who served as the Lord Mayor of London in 1689. Early life He was son of Thomas Pilkington of Northampton, by his second wife, Anne Mercer, and grandson of John Pilkington of Oakham in Rutland. He came to London at an early age, and became a successful merchant. He was a member of the Skinners' Company, and served the office of master there in 1677, 1681, and 1682. Representative of the City of London Pilkington was an early Whig politician of the Exclusion Crisis, and was returned as one of the four City of London members to the short Parliament which met on 6 March 1679. In the course of the debate Pilkington expressed a wish that James, Duke of York might return from abroad, so that he might be impeached for high treason. He was again returned to the parliament of 1680. On 14 December in the same year he was elected alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without. In June 1681 the citizens obtained a victory over the court interest, on the election of Pilkington and Samuel Shute as sheriffs, after a hotly contested poll, by a large majority over the court candidates, Ralph Box and Humphrey Nicholson. The election gave offence to the king; but Pilkington entertained at his house the Duke of Monmouth, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, and other leaders of the whig party. Meanwhile, the lord mayor, Sir John Moore, who led the court faction in the city, gave similar entertainments to its chiefs at his house in Fleet Street. Roger North claimed in his Examen that, on the trial of the Earl of Shaftesbury for high treason (24 November 1681), Pilkington showed great partiality in returning the grand jury, and was reprimanded by the judges.