BEAUMONT, Henry I, of Dunwich, Suff.

Beaumont was not a native of Dunwich, since he paid the customary entry fine of 6s. 8d. levied on outsiders who applied to join its freemen. Ibid. 73. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 57, conflates him with Henry Beaumont II*. He may have settled there shortly before the accounting year 1407-8, during which he was involved in at least three property transactions with local townsmen. Add. Roll 40708 A roll of assize rents collected by the Dunwich authorities between Easter 1427 and Michaelmas 1437 records that he paid an annual rent of 16d. for a messuage and two shops in the town during this period. SC11/886, mm. 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24, 27. Another local record, the town’s early fifteenth-century minute book, shows that Beaumont paid his taxes (whether to the town or the Crown) as a resident of the parish of St. John the Baptist. He would not, however, appear to have become a particularly prominent property holder. When, for example, the men of Dunwich were assessed for a royal tax in 1410 he was expected to pay only 9d., whereas the wealthy John Moreff* had to contribute 4s. Similarly, when the town authorities resorted to a tax to cover the costs of sending MPs to the Parliament of 1427 Beaumont was asked to pay 16d., considerably less than the 5s. 6d. sought from Moreff. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 74-76, 112, 133-4.

So far as is known, Beaumont took part in his first parliamentary election in late 1414 but was not involved in any succeeding elections until that of 1429 when he and John Polard* were returned. Apart from attesting the borough’s returns at the next four parliamentary elections, he also played a part in that of 1442. The Dunwich return to the Parliament of that year has not survived, but he was very likely one of the attestors, since he was a mainpernor for the newly elected Robert Cuddon*. C219/15/2.

Beaumont began his official career not long after attesting the 1414 election, for in the following year he was one of those chosen to collect a land fine, a levy that the town authorities imposed on the inhabitants of Dunwich. In 1418 and again 11 years later, he helped to assess local taxes, and in 1421 he was one of the collectors of a dole, a fixed share of the season’s catch payable by skippers of fishing vessels to the corporation. Co-ordinating the collection of all doles became one of his responsibilities in September 1429 when, a day before his election to his first Parliament, he and Thomas James became the first two chamberlains of Dunwich. Beaumont was already a leading townsman when he became chamberlain: in mid 1425, for example, he had been among the local officers and burgesses who agreed to lease ten plots of land in All Saints’ parish (once held by Augustine Illes†, a prominent burgess of the 1330s and 1340s) to John Luke*. At the end of the same decade, the corporation asked him and other burgesses to contribute towards the cost of constructing Dunwich’s east quay. It is uncertain whether he contributed, since there is a blank after his name in the minute book’s list of potential contributors. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 90, 97, 109, 123, 137, 138, 143.

In June 1437, Beaumont received a pardon from the Crown. C67/38, m. 22. The pardon roll does not mention his occupation or social status, but his wife, Agnes, would appear to have engaged in commercial activity on her own account, for the town’s court amerced her several times during the 1420s for breaking a local assize regulating the brewing and sale of beer. SC11/886, mm. 3, 5d. Exactly when she became Beaumont’s wife is not known, but it was some time before April 1411, when the couple were amerced by the town authorities for leaving a dung heap next to the property of Hugh Thorpe†. Add. Roll 40715. Beaumont was amerced for another dung heap in 1422, this time on the royal highway next to his messuage: Add. Roll 40722.

There is no record of when Beaumont died and his exact relationship with other Beaumonts living in Dunwich in the fifteenth century is unclear. The John Beaumont who requested burial in the Dunwich parish church of St. John the Baptist in his will of 1446, was probably a relative; but it is impossible to prove that John’s son (named Henry) was the MP. Later, in a will of 1471, Thomas Beaumont also chose the same church for his burial place. Probably the man who served as a coroner of Dunwich in the late 1450s, he appointed ‘Henry Beaumont senior’ one of his executors, but it is very unlikely that this was the MP. Suff. RO (Ipswich), archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/1/49, 2/263; C219/16/3. Thomas also had a son named Henry, who died in 1488: archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/3/58.