FLEETWOOD, JAMES, D.D. (1603–1683), bishop of Worcester, the seventh son of Sir George Fleetwood of the Vache, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, by Catherine, daughter of Henry Denny of Waltham, Essex, was baptised at Chalfont St. Giles 25 April 1603. He was educated first at Eton and then at King's College, Cambridge, of which he was elected scholar in 1623. Having taken holy orders, he was appointed in 1632 chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Robert Wright), by whom he was presented to the vicarage of Frees, Shropshire, and subsequently, 12 July 1636, collated to the prebend of Eccleshall in the church of Lichfield, in which he was installed on 9 Sept. following. On the outbreak of the rebellion he attached himself as chaplain to the regiment of John, earl of Rivers, and was of so much service at the battle of Edgehill - whether he limited himself strictly to prayers and exhortations or took a more active part in the fighting is not clear - that at Charles's special command the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.D. on 1 Nov. 1642. He was afterwards preferred to the rectory of Button Coldfield, Warwickshire, from which, however, he was ejected by the parliament. He was tutor to several noblemen and chaplain to Prince Charles, who made him his chaplain in ordinary on the Restoration. In accordance with a royal mandate the fellows of King's College, Cambridge, elected him provost in June 1660. Dr. Whichcote, the existing provost, supported by a minority of the fellows, held out in his rooms, and Fleetwood was compelled to apply to Charles for a 'letter mandatory' before he would quit. He was restored to the living of Frees and presented to the rectory of Anstey in Hertfordshire and that of Denham in Buckinghamshire. On 29 Aug. 1675 he was consecrated bishop of Worcester in the church of St. Peter le Poer, Broad Street, London. He died on 17 July 1683, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. A mural tablet inscribed with his name was placed in Jesus Chapel the same year. Wood states that he was buried in the lady chapel, and that 'a marble monument with an epitaph of his own making' was placed over his grave in 1687. No trace of this, however, is now to be seen. By his wife, Martha Mercer of Reading, he had two sons, Arthur and John (the latter became archdeacon of Worcester), besides four daughters.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ii. 51; Alumni Etonenses; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. App. 67, 7th Rep. App. 106; Britton's Worcester Cathedral, App. 2; information from J. P. Earwaker, esq.]
FLEETWOOD, Sir PETER HESKETH (1801–1866), founder of the town of Fleetwood, descended from the ancient Lancashire families of Hesketh and Fleetwood, son of Robert Hesketh, esq., of Rossall, Lancashire, was born at Wennington Hall, near Lancaster, on 9 May 1801. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1823 and M.A. in 1826. He was high sheriff of Lancashire in 1830, and sat as M.P. for Preston from 1832 to 1847, at first as a conservative, and subsequently as a member of the opposite party. He assumed the surname of Fleetwood by royal license 5 March 1831, and was created a baronet in June 1838. He projected, and in 1836 commenced to build the present flourishing town and port of Fleetwood, situated on his estate of Rossall, at the mouth of the river Wyre, in the Fylde, Lancashire. He was a strong advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, and in 1840 published a translation of Victor Hugo's 'Last Days of a Condemned,' to which he prefixed 'Observations on Capital Punishment.'
He was twice married : first in 1826 to Eliza Debonnaire, daughter of Sir T. J. Metcalfe ; and secondly, in 1837, to Virginia Marie, daughter of Seiior Pedro Garcia, who still (1889) survives. Sir Peter died at his residence, 127 Piccadilly, London, on 12 April 1866. His son, the Rev. Sir Peter Louis Hesketh Fleetwood, died in 1880, when the baronetcy became extinct.
[Gent. Mag. June 1866, p. 906; Illustrated London News, April 1886, p. 426; Hardwick's History of Preston (1857), p. 555; Baines's History of Lancashire (1870), ii. 517-18; Lancashire and Cheshire Historical and Genealogical Notes, ii. 113, 118.]
FLEETWOOD, THOMAS (1661–1717), drainer of Marton or Martin Meer, eldest son of Sir Richard Fleetwood, bart., of Calwick, Staffordshire, who survived him, was born in 1661, and having married the daughter and heiress of Christopher Bannister, esq., of Bank Hall, Lancashire, he purchased from the Mainwarings, about 1690, the manor of Marton Grange, or Marton Sands, in the same county. His land adjoined a large lake called Marton (or Martin) Meer, occupying an area of 3,132 acres, with a circumference of about eighteen miles, and this he boldly resolved to drain. Having first obtained from the neighbouring proprietors a lease of their rights in the meer for the duration of three lives and thirty-one years, he procured in 1692 an act of parliament allowing him to proceed, and commenced operations in the following year. On these extensive works as many as two thousand labourers
