KELE, Thomas, of Grainthorpe, Lincs.

Kele’s parentage is unknown, but he was certainly a member of the family which founded the guild of St. Mary in Grainthorpe church in 1358. CPR, 1358-61, pp. 43-44; 1385-9, p. 371; 1391-6, p.136; Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reps. and Pprs. xxxvi (2), 275. John Kele (d.1416), rector of Grainthorpe and canon of Lincoln cathedral, was probably his uncle. Reg. Repingdon, iii (Lincoln Rec. Soc. lxxiv), 206. His father may have been the Robert Kele, who, on either side of 1400, was active as a minor Lincolnshire lawyer. Described as ‘of Lincolnshire’, Robert offered mainprise in Chancery on several occasions between 1390 and 1403: e.g. CCR, 1388-92, p. 151; 1402-5, p. 149. He had connexions in the city of Lincoln. By a final concord levied in 1400, he acquired a few acres in Grainthorpe from Ralph Askeby of Lincoln: CP25(1)/144/151/18. In 1408 his wife Joan received a bequest in the will of the widow of the Lincoln merchant, Robert Appleby†: Reg. Repingdon, i (Lincoln Rec. Soc. lvii), 144. He himself was twice appointed to ad hoc commissions in the city: CPR, 1396-9, p. 505; 1405-8, p. 350. The first reference to Thomas is in connexion with Grainthorpe, which lies about 12 miles to the south-east of Grimsby: in Michaelmas term 1426 he appeared in the court of common pleas to sue a Lincoln husbandman for infringing his manorial rights there. CP40/663, rot. 67d; 686, rot. 385. This implies that he was a man of some resources, and this is confirmed by his assessment at as much as 40 marks p.a. in the subsidy returns of 1436. Part of this no doubt derived from the fees of his profession, that of the law, but he is known to have held property not only at Grainthorpe but also at East Haddon in Northamptonshire. C219/14/5; E179/136/198; CP40/686, rot. 385.

Kele began his documented public career by attesting the Lincolnshire parliamentary election of 6 Oct. 1427, but it was in the law courts at Westminster that he made his career. Lincs. Archit. and Arch Soc. i. 72. In Trinity term 1430 he became the filacer responsible for Lincolnshire cases in the court of common pleas. Because his official duties kept him near the capital for a significant part of the year he is occasionally found in association with its residents: in 1439 he was one of those to whom the London girdler, Thomas Parker, granted his goods, and in 1444 he was a feoffee of Thomas Goolde of Holborn. CCR, 1435-41, p. 381; 1441-7, p. 267. Surprisingly, however, he is not found acting as a feoffee in his native county, in marked contrast to local lawyers of equivalent rank, like John Langholm I* and Richard Duffield*. Nor is there any evidence to connect him with the affairs of the borough of Grimsby, beyond his election to represent it in the Parliament of 1435. He does, however, fit into the general pattern of the representation of that borough, which frequently returned local lawyers.

Another curiousity of Kele’s career is the apparent suddenness with which it ended. In 1442 he was replaced as the Lincolnshire filacer by Robert Gegge* and thereafter he makes only sporadic appearances in the records. In 1443 he joined with Langholm in taking a 17-year mortgage in the manor of Wragholm in Grainthorpe from his financially-embarrassed neighbour, Thomas Bukton. CCR, 1441-7, pp. 227-8. The only other certain references to him concern litigation: in 1449 he sued a Grimsby mariner for a debt of 20 marks; and in 1452 he had actions pending against three of his lesser Grainthorpe neighbours each for £16. CP40/753, rot. 145; 765, rot. 221. The date of his death is unknown. Given his earlier London connexions, he is perhaps to be identified with the feoffee of the London draper, Thomas Hoop, sued in Chancery in the early 1460s for failing to make estate of land in Kent under the terms of Hoop’s last will. If this is so, he was probably the master of the Grainthorpe guild in 1466 and the Lindsey tax collector of June 1468. Robert, the son of the tax collector, was educated at Furnival’s Inn and appointed as Lincolnshire escheator in 1483. C1/27/226; 60/133; CP40/814, rot. 262d; J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 958-9.