| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Ipswich | [1545] |
Portman, Ipswich 1539 – d., bailiff 1542 – 43, 1549 – 50, 1555 – 56, j.p. 1542 – 45, 1546 – 47, 1549 – 50, 1553 – 54, 1555–6.2N. Bacon, Annals Ipswich, 214–43 passim.
William Reynbald came of a family at Norwich, where his brother Robert was a grocer. Acquiring a comfortable fortune from overseas trade, he is found lending Bishop Nykke of Norwich £80, and his subsidy assessment in 1545, of £60 on goods, was among the highest at Ipswich. Like other Ipswich merchants, he engaged in the Icelandic trade, where he and they were able to pay far higher wages to their crews than could the merchants of the smaller towns: Reynbald offered a skiff-master £7 for a single voyage.3P. Millican, Freemen of Norwich, 71; E122/53/19; 179/181/280; LP Hen. VIII, x; J. G. Webb, Great Tooley of Ipswich, 77-78, 142.
From the early 1540s until his death Reynbald served Ipswich almost continuously, either as bailiff or justice of the peace, and he clearly owed his return to the Parliament of 1545 to his municipal standing. He died between 23 Sept. and 29 Oct. 1556, the date of his will and its probate. His property, all in Ipswich and including a house lately called the Greyfriars, was left to his wife and son William. Two ships were to be sold, with preference of purchase to his sons Robert and William. The other two sons and his three daughters received generous bequests of money. He named as executors his son William, his brother Robert and his son-in-law Thomas Richmond and as supervisor his ‘trusty friend Edmund Stuard, clerk’.4PCC 19 Ketchyn.