WOOD, John IV

The identity of the man who represented Totnes in the Parliament of 1435 cannot be established with absolute certainty. No individual of this name is recorded living either at Totnes or Dartmouth in this period, and the most likely candidate appears to be John atte Wode, a minor Devon gentleman from the parish of Brixton. Wood came to prominence in the shire in about 1431 when in succession to his father he acquired a share in the Champernowne inheritance, which, following the childless death of Otto Champernowne in 1422, had been divided among the heirs of Otto’s three aunts, Margaret, Elizabeth and Joan (the last named being John Wood’s grandmother).4 CCR, 1429-35, p. 221; 1435-41, pp. 213, 222-3; 1441-7, pp. 168-9; CFR, xvi. 39-40. The Champernowne holdings centred on the manor of North Tawton in central Devon, but Wood seems to have owned lands in other parts of the county as well, for his son was later to be described as ‘of Hareston’.5 C67/40, m. 16. He may additionally have acquired a share in the lands of Richard Holecombe of Hollacombe by virtue of his marriage to Elizabeth, a kinswoman of Richard, but the extent of any such acquisition, if it ever took place, is unknown. It is uncertain whether at the time of his return to Parliament for Totnes Wood fulfilled the statutory requirement for residence even in so far as to own property in the town, but he did have links with some of the leading men in the borough, including the influential John Prall*, for whom he stood surety in Chancery in about 1443, as well as the Ritte family, with whom he was connected through his wife’s kinship to the Holecombes.6 C1/26/565; 73/33.

It seems that Wood received some training in the law, and he was periodically called upon by his neighbours to attest their property deeds or to act as their feoffee.7 CCR, 1422-9, p. 42; 1429-35, pp. 164, 300, 302; 1435-41, p. 35. In the summer of 1444 he was associated with John Wolston* and John Radford * in a land dispute in the court of common pleas, but neither the location of the lands in question nor the circumstances of the quarrel are known for certain.8 CP40/734, rot. 112d. Equally, Wood’s public career remained strictly limited. He occasionally served on local juries,9 C139/34/42, 74/26. and held minor office as deputy to one or other of the Crown’s officials. Thus, in October 1442 he was acting as William Bastard’s deputy in the collection of a tenth and fifteenth granted by Parliament earlier that year, when he came under attack by several men who prevented his seizure of their livestock at Hardwick in distraint for the tax.10 E13/142, rot. 42. Two years later, he was certifying into Chancery proceedings held before the Devon bench,11 KB9/245/107d. while he reached the apex of his public career when in 1447-8 he served as under sheriff of Devon to Thomas Buttockshide†.12 CP40/750, rot. 110d.

The date of Wood’s death is obscure, and it may have been he who attested the shire elections of 1453 and 1455, but he was certainly dead by 1460. He was succeeded by his son, another John, who attested the Devon elections of 1472, and died in 1480.13 CFR, xxi. 561.