GOULD, John, of Dorchester, Dorset and Seaborough, Som.

It was in 1391, the year of his only Parliament, that Gould acted as attorney for his father, Robert, in a Chancery case regarding the concealment of treasure trove at Seaborough; and John was himself described as ‘of Seaborough’ when, in 1398, he and others conveyed tenements in Dorchester and Sutton Poyntz to Christine, widow of Thomas Lamer. In 1401, the escheator of Somerset was directed to release lands in ‘Northwolsten’ and ‘Putwolston’ of which Gould and his wife were tenants.Ibid. 129; C44/17/7; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 353. A few weeks after Gould’s appointment as a tax collector in Somerset his fellow collectors were directed to proceed without him, he being too busy as an attorney in the King’s courts to fulfil his duties. In April 1408, he released all his right in land and tenements in Bridport, Bradpole and Walditch (Dorset). Nothing more is known about him until, in July 1411, a royal licence was granted to him and others enabling them to alienate in mortmain lands in Tintinhull (Somerset) to the Cluniac priory of Montacute. He was also a patron of the church at Seaborough to which, in November 1414, he granted a plot of land as a new site, while he himself retained a messuage, dovecote and land nearby. Gould is referred to as ‘of Dorchester’ in 1420 when he acted as attorney in a conveyance of property between John Roger I and Robert Mose.CCR, 1405-9, p. 303; CAD, ii. C2671; CPR, 1408-13, p. 301; 1413-16, p. 290; C143/442/4, 446/16.

Gould died sometime before September 1428 when one of his executors sold a burgage in ‘Puselane’ together with a tenement and farm buildings in North Street, Dorchester, all of which he had held jointly with John Jordan and Reynold Jacob by Gould’s bequest.Recs. Dorchester, 230, 262-3.