COLCLOUGH, Hugh.

Although he did not take an active part in municipal life, Colclough belonged to a long-established Newcastle family, many of whose members achieved prominence in the borough as office-holders and MPs. At least four men of this surname were returned by the burgesses during our period; and even though their precise relationship cannot now be established with any degree of certainty, there can be little doubt that they were kinsmen.According to the heraldic visitations of 1614 and 1663/4, this MP was the son of Richard Colclough†, the brother of William* and the father of Richard*. There is, however, no direct evidence to support this pedigree (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. v (2), 86). An undated retinue roll of Edmund, earl of Stafford (probably compiled between 1397 and 1400), lists Colclough among the earl’s esquires, and it was as such that he was summoned in January and June 1400, first to help put down the earl of Kent’s rebellion and then to serve in Henry IV’s Scottish campaign. Not long afterwards, in June 1401, Earl Edmund awarded him an annuity of ten marks payable for life from the manor of Madeley in Staffordshire. This was confirmed to him by Henry IV after the earl’s death in 1403, and was still being paid five years later.Ibid. xiv. 264; Staffs. RO, D641/1/2/40A mm. 1, 2, 48; CPR, 1401-5, pp. 301, 347, 379; CCR, 1402-5, pp. 238, 328.

Meanwhile, in January 1403, Colclough discharged his duties as a feoffee-to-uses of Robert Cocknage, a local landowner. One year later he was named in a lawsuit as the joint owner of property in the Staffordshire village of Chorlton, presumably once again in the capacity of a trustee. In the spring of 1411 he himself went to law, bringing an action of waste against the tenant to whom he had leased his houses in Little Chell, Staffordshire. He is last mentioned in June 1413, when, together with class="ref" title="William Lee II " href="internal:node/48313">William Lee II and others, he was a party to the marriage settlement made upon the son of

John Delves

†.Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xi. 308, xvi. 43, 76; CPR, 1413-16, p. 60.