CLITHEROE, Hugh, of Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorks.

Not much evidence survives about this relatively obscure figure, who is known to have been involved in trade from about 1395 onwards if not before, importing dyestuffs into Hull and exporting wool. In 1409 he obtained seisin of a messuage in Hull Street from a local couple, probably in the capacity of a feoffee-to-uses. He certainly performed this service six years later for a neighbouring landowner named Richard Popelay, who conveyed to him a fairly substantial estate in and around the Yorkshire village of Birstall. Popelay, in turn, was chosen, along with Henry Clitheroe — no doubt one of the MP’s kinsmen — to act as a trustee of all Clitheroe’s goods and chattels, both in England and overseas. This transaction, dated March 1416, may well have been effected just before Clitheroe’s death, since no more is heard of him afterwards.CP25(1)279/152/12; E122/59/25, 26; Cal. Hull Deeds ed. Stanewell, D204-5; Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. lxxxiii. 43; cii. 75. There is a strong possibility that the Hugh Clitheroe who served a number of terms as mayor of Hull and represented the town in at least five Parliaments during the mid 15th century, was his son, in which case he must have had at least one illegitimate child (a boy also named Hugh) as well.Cal. Hull Deeds, D342; HP ed. Wedgwood 1439-1509, Biogs. 196-7.