WIGSTON, William

Wigston was the founder, or at least the first prominent member, of a family which quickly became the most important in Leicester. Despite the family’s sudden rise to pre-eminence in the town, his own career is poorly documented. He first appears in the records in the late 1430s when resident at Aylestone, a few miles from Leicester. In 1438 he had a plea of trespass pending in the court of King’s bench against a widow and tanner of Uppingham (Rutland), and in the following year, described as a husbandman, he was sued by Sir Thomas Erdington* for a debt of 40s.2 KB27/709, rot. 86; CP40/712, rot. 291d. Not until the mid 1440s did he begin to take a part in the town’s administrative affairs. He was named as one of the four stewards of the fair in 1446, and on 2 Apr. 1448 he sat on a jury of leading townsmen when royal commissioners came to Leicester to inquire into the illegal giving of livery. His election to the mayoralty at the following Michaelmas confirmed his elevation to the ranks of the borough elite.3 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 448, 453; C145/313/13; CIMisc. viii. 213.

The explanation for this sudden emergence to local prominence probably lies in Wigston’s extensive trading interests. By the time of his first mayoralty he was numbered among the merchants of the Calais staple. On 20 Oct. of that year, together with two fellow staplers, he had licence to export wool from Ipswich free of customs for four years in repayment of their contribution of £331 19s. to the sum of £10,700 loaned by the staplers to the Crown since the mid 1440s. Thereafter he contributed to further loans, which were extended at a faster rate than they were repaid. Thus, in October 1454, he shared licences for repayment of a further £150.4 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 315, 323; 1452-61, pp. 210-12, 226. Negotiations for the repayment of these sums between Crown and staplers may have informed Wigston’s interest in parliamentary affairs. He headed the attestors to the parliamentary election held at Leicester on 1 Mar. 1453 and was himself returned at the next election on 19 June 1455.5 C219/16/2, 3.

Wigston’s return came at a sensitive time: a section of the townsmen, headed by the mayor Thomas Dalton*, were in dispute with the town’s royal bailiff, Richard Hotoft*. Wigston’s election in company with Dalton implies that he was numbered among the mayor’s supporters. In January 1457 he is again found in association with Dalton, although this time in less contentious circumstances. They appeared before royal commissioners at Leicester to testify that they ‘fuerunt socii scolares in scolis’ with the clerk about whose place of burial the commissioners were inquiring. His second election as mayor in September 1459 coincided with that of his son Roger as one of the borough chamberlains.6 C145/316/4; CIMisc. viii. 239; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 448-9.

During the course of his career Wigston made a number of property purchases in Leicester. In the autumn of 1460, for example, he purchased two messuages in the parish of St. Martin, employing as his feoffees in the conveyance two important local figures, William Hastings (later Lord Hastings) and Robert Staunton*. Later, in November 1469 he added a further messuage and two cottages in the same parish, and it is there that he seems to have concentrated his holdings.7 Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, 358, 364; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 267. It was, in any event, in the lady chapel of the parish church of St. Martin that he was buried, probably soon after this last acquisition.8 Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. p. xi. By his death Wigston’s three sons were already established among the leading men of Leicester. Roger, who married Dalton’s widow in his father’s lifetime, served as mayor in 1465-6, and his younger brother, John, did likewise in 1469-70. Both went on to represent Leicester in Parliament, and all three sons became merchants of the Calais staple. Remarkably, according to the subsidy roll of 1524, our MP’s grandson, William†, owned nearly a quarter of the borough’s taxable property. It was this William who founded the hospital which still bears his family name.9 CP40/794, rot. 88d; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 449; HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 948-9; VCH Leics. iv. 40-41.