John Bussebrigge, the MP’s father, was a landowner on a fairly modest scale, whose ancestors had for many years been connected with the manor of Drungewick (or Slinfold) in Sussex. John himself served as steward there for the bishop of Chichester, although most of his property lay across the county border in the area around Ewhurst and Godalming, and the few royal commissions which came his way were addressed to him as a resident of Surrey. The Thomas Bussebrigge of Godalming who became vicar of Hambledon in Hampshire in 1391, after graduating from New College, Oxford, may well have been his younger son, for the family had strong connexions with the Church.
Comparatively little is known about Bussebrigge’s other activities. He was a feoffee-to-uses of property in Leatherhead, Surrey, his title to which was successfully established in the county court during the Easter term of 1393. At some unrecorded date he became a tenant of the Brocas family in Guildford, but it was not until his father’s death in 1405 that he seems to have owned any property himself. His inheritance produced approximately £7 a year, an income which remained fairly constant until he himself died 11 years later. This last part of his life was marked by his return as a shire knight in 1407 and his attendance at the county elections of 1415. His death occurred on 7 Sept. 1416, only a few months after he had been commissioned for the first time to be a local tax collector.