FARINGDON, Thomas (d.1444), of Tincleton, Dorset.

Faringdon was under age and a royal ward when, in 1397, the presentation to the church of Winterbourne ‘Faringdon’ was in the King’s gift. He himself later held the advowson and the manor to which it was attached (being patron of the church in 1414), as well as lands at Iwerne Courtenay, but his main seat was at Tincleton, about four miles east of Dorchester. He also occupied a number of properties in the county town itself, including some belonging to his first wife, Joan, who died in 1410.CPR, 1396-9, p. 143; Reg. Hallum (Canterbury and York Soc. lxxii), 461; Feudal Aids, ii. 73, 113, 114; Dorchester Recs. ed. Mayo, 159, 186, 196, 206, 244-5. One of the beneficiaries of her will was Robert Craford of Wareham, who had named Faringdon as a feoffee of his lands in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire in the previous year, and was to serve with him as a Member for Wareham in Henry V’s first Parliament. Faringdon seems to have had little other contact with the affairs of this borough, although in 1412 he witnessed a conveyance there. His standing as a country gentleman is clear from his description as ‘esquire’, and his kinship with the established landed families of Syfrewast and de la Lynde. He attended the elections of the knights of the shire for Dorset on many occasions: certainly in 1407, 1413 (May), 1419, 1420, 1425, 1426, 1427, 1429 and 1431. In 1417, 1419, 1425, 1426 and 1431 he was also named on the indentures recording the elections of parliamentary burgesses, acting as a delegate from either Weymouth or Wareham.Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 241; Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 104; C219/10/4, 11/2, 12/2-4, 13/3-5, 14/1, 2. It is possible, therefore, that he was in some way involved in the administration of the estates of the earls of March, of which those boroughs formed part.

By 1430 Faringdon had married into one of the leading Dorset families, that of Gouvitz. In May that year the father of his wife, Margaret, settled on them property in Burton and Winfrith Newburgh, along with 360 acres of land and common of the pasture for 60 cattle and 300 sheep at Combe Keynes. The report made earlier, in 1427, that Faringdon was ‘too sick and aged’ to carry out the duties of the coronership of Dorset was evidently exaggerated, though he may have deliberately avoided royal service. At all events, he did not die until 28 Aug. 1444 (when he was interred in the church of Clyffe near Tincleton). His widow long survived him, marrying, as her second husband, one Walter Welle, and she continued to hold the manors of East and West Tincleton. It was not until her death, in 1482, that the estate passed to Faringdon’s daughter Iseult, wife of Sir William Martin† of Athelhampton, who was by then aged at least 48.Hutchins, ii. 629; C140/84/38.