NEWMAN, Robert

A namesake had sat in the Commons twice for Malmesbury (in 1397 and 1399) and once for Cricklade (in 1413),4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 827-8. but our Robert Newman is not known to have been descended from him. More likely is a relationship with the Newmans of Salisbury,5 For John Newman of Salisbury, see CCR, 1413-19, pp. 179-80; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 50-51; iv. 400-4. and specifically with another namesake, the Salisbury mercer who died in 1457. That Robert Newman had joined the council of 48 in the city by September 1451, and been elected to the 24 in November 1452, when he paid a fine of £4 to be excused from the offices of alderman and reeve.6 First General Entry Bk. Salisbury (Wilts. Rec. Soc. liv), nos. 444, 445, 456-7. His property in New Street included a building known as ‘Le Crane’, and his will, made on 4 June 1457 and proved on 19 Sept. following, shows him to have been relatively prosperous, for he left £10 to be distributed to the poor on the day of his funeral, £40 each to his widow Alice and son John, and bequests of silver plate and pieces of silver of ‘Pariswerk’. The Salisbury property was left in tail to the testator’s son John, with successive remainders to two nephews, and then to Robert, son of John Newman ‘of Nonnington’ (perhaps Nunton to the south of Salisbury).7 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 70; PCC 10 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 74-75). Suits brought by his executors in Chancery also reveal that Newman of Salisbury traded in merchandise worth hundreds of pounds: C1/26/373; 1504/5.

Perhaps the man elected two years later as MP for Wilton at the Coventry Parliament was Robert of ‘Nonnington’. Although there is no evidence to link him with Wilton before 1459, it seems likely that he was a kinsman of John Newman, the mayor of 1438-9,8 Wilton stewards’ accts. G25/1/88. and he regularly appears in the lists of burgesses compiled from the late 1460s.9 Wilton gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, ff. 581-9, 591-8. As such he was present at Wilton for the elections to the Parliament of 1472, being one of the 18 who made the choice of MPs for the borough.10 Ibid. f. 600. Among the duties Newman undertook were those of a member of the council of 12, while in April 1474 he was one of four men elected as receivers of rents from burgages belonging to the commonalty,11 Ibid. f. 33. and he held the post of coroner in the two years from 1477. He died while in office in 1479 – the word ‘mort’ then being inserted after his name in the lists of burgesses and councillors.12 Ibid. ff. 39, 586. He may have been the father or grandfather of the Robert Newman who served as portreeve of Wilton in 1497-8.13 Ibid. f. 76.