COLLOM, John

Collom first appears in the records in a rental of February 1414 as owing a rent of 16s. to Scarborough’s church of St. Mary.3 E101/514/31, f. 7. His origins are probably to be sought in Scarborough, but it is possible that he was the son of Richard Collom of Garton near Kingston-upon-Hull, who named a son John as executor of his 1430 will: Borthwick Inst. Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 652. Soon after, he appears as paying fish tithes to the same church. In 1417-18 he paid 30s. on what was described as ‘Iceland fare’, that is, fish caught in the relatively distant waters off Iceland, an area exploited by only the most substantial of the town’s fishermen.4 E101/514/31, f. 44v; Med. Scarborough ed. Crouch and Pearson, 24-25. No records of fish tithes survive between then and 1434, but by this latter date he was involved yet more intensively in the fishing industry. In 1434-5 he paid tithes of £5 9s., suggesting, given the variable tithe rates applied to catches in different waters, that the total value of his catch was over £140. He fished the North Sea, presumably for cod off the Dogger Banks, but had abandoned the more distant Iceland waters, which were now exploited, among Scarborough’s fishermen, by only Richard Daniell, who may have been Collom’s father-in-law. In 1435-6 catches were significantly lower across the Scarborough fleet with the value of Collom’s falling to £42, but they soon recovered. In 1438-9 our MP’s catch was worth £88 and, in 1441-2, £142.5 E101/514/32, ff. 7v-9, 19v-20, 21, 29-30, 36v-37v.

These fishing interests underpinned Collom’s position among the leading burgesses and help explain his three elections as bailiff between 1433 and 1446 and his single election to Parliament. As bailiff, he attracted two complaints to the chancellor about his abuse of office. On 2 May 1436 he and John Acclom* were obliged to appear in Chancery to deny that they had made fraudulent entries on a plea of covenant pending before them as bailiffs, to the disadvantage of a Dutch merchant, Peter Mayun. The latter appears to have enjoyed the protection of William Venour, warden of the Fleet, and 12 days later the two bailiffs were bound in £200 to Venour to abide arbitration, with what result is unknown. Later, one Robert Hummanby of Scarborough alleged that a Scotsman had been condemned to him in a plea of debt before our MP and John Lambard as bailiffs in 1439-40, but they had let the defendant return to Scotland with the debt unpaid.6 C1/1/57-58; 12/48-49; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 61-62.

The surviving records reveal little else of Collom’s career, and even the wills left by both himself and his wife are uninformative. His will, drawn up on 22 May 1457, a few days before his death, was confined to only the most routine of details. He wanted, like all the leading townsmen of Scarborough, to be buried in the church of St. Mary, and he left an unspecified stipend, if it could be conveniently levied from his goods after the payment of his debts, for a priest to celebrate for a year for his soul. His wife was to have all the household utensils that had been hers before their marriage, and she was entrusted with the task of implementing these simple terms under the supervision of one of the leading burgesses, John Daniell*. She survived Collom by only a month, leaving a will as plain as that of her husband. Its sole named beneficiary, after the routine charitable bequests, was Daniell, who was to have her chief messuage in fee with the request that he fund a chaplain in St. Mary’s church, where she wanted to be buried next to her late husband, for a term of five years. Daniell was named as executor and, interestingly, Ralph, son and heir-apparent of Sir William Euer*, as supervisor.7 York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, ff. 350, 354. Given the central role assigned to John Daniell in the wills of both Collom and his wife, it is more than probable that Alice was a Daniell by birth or, at least, closely connected with that family. In the will of Isabel, wid. of Richard Daniell, made in 1438, there is a bequest to her daughter Alice, who was either the sister, half-sister or stepsister (for Isabel is known to have had a husband before Richard) of John Daniell: ibid. f. 591. The Euers had a residence at Old Malton, some 20 miles from Scarborough, and had played an occasional part in the town’s affairs, most notably when Ralph’s brother, Henry*, represented it in the Parliament of 1449 (Feb.). Neither of the wills mentions children, but it is possible that William Collom, who offered surety on the election of Robert Hogeson* for Scarborough to the Parliament of 1455, was their son.8 C219/16/3.