GLOUCESTER, John III

Not to be confused with his namesake, John Gloucester II*, the well-connected Exchequer official, John Gloucester of Southwark had, nevertheless, a successful career centred principally upon his home town. His father, a hosteler who also represented the borough, died before the end of 1428, after making arrangements for the financial security of his two children, John and Alice. His provisions, involving the handing over to each of them the sum of £20 as well as quantities of clothes, jewels and plate, were carried out by his executors. Young John, said to be 14 years old in 1428, may have taken delivery of his father’s goods before reaching his majority: in December 1433 he released his father’s executors from all legal actions.6 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 457-8; 1429-35, pp.172-3, 292.

However, it is possible that he was older than had been stated, and was the John Gloucester who had entered the royal household in the mid 1420s. That John was retained as a yeoman to serve in the King’s entourage on the coronation expedition which left England for France in the spring of 1430, receiving wages of 6d. a day while abroad. He served alongside Thomas Went*, another Southwark man who also later represented the borough in Parliament.7 E101/408/1; E404/46/302, 303; E403/693, m. 20, 695, m. 6. It is conceivable that this position in the Household was secured with the help of Thomas Haseley†, the prominent Chancery clerk and holder of land in Southwark, who had supervised the activities of his father’s executors. If the royal yeoman was indeed the Southwark man, then he remained a member of the Household, albeit in a minor position, until at least 1443.8 E101/408/11, f. 10, 409/9, f. 37v, 11, f. 39.

By then Gloucester had set up in business as a grocer, and from the early 1440s he was often described as a grocer of Southwark or London. In October 1441 he is recorded purchasing pepper and green ginger from members of the crew of a Venetian galley docked in the port of London, whose patron was ‘hosted’ by the leading grocer John Welles II*, although the quantities of spices involved (for which he paid little more than £15), point to his lower standing than members of the Grocers’ Company in the City.9 H. Bradley, Views of Hosts of Alien Merchants, no. 48. Nevertheless, as a grocer he became involved in a number of transactions with other Londoners as well as with individuals from outside the capital: one of these transactions resulted in a debt of 40 marks owed to him by William Coventry, a clerk from Sussex, which he first claimed in December 1445 but which was still owing 13 years later.10 C47/80/5/135; CPR, 1452-61, p. 450; CCR, 1447-54, p. 325.

Gloucester’s local connexions qualified him to represent his Southwark neighbours in Parliament in February 1449, and during the second session he was associated with Peter Saverey*, John Hunt†, a fellow grocer, and other parishioners in the foundation of a guild dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in St. Margaret’s church in their home town.11 CPR, 1446-52, p. 264. A personal connexion may also account for his election for the Sussex borough of New Shoreham in the autumn of the same year. On that occasion, Gloucester’s former seat at Southwark was taken by the local lawyer William Redstone*, who had represented Shoreham in February. How the two men managed to swop their constituencies remains a mystery, although the fact that the same sheriff, Nicholas Carew*, made all the returns may have facilitated the arrangement.

After his parliamentary service had ended, Gloucester continued to be involved in the affairs of the Southwark parish where he seems to have lived for most of his life. In May 1454 he acted as a mainpernor when Hunt and his fellow churchwardens at St. Margaret’s successfully petitioned the chancellor to try to recover two messuages and two cottages in the parish from Thomas Slyfield*, who, the sole surviving feoffee of the property, had allegedly failed to comply with the conditions for a trust set up to provide daily prayers for the souls of Thomas Palmer and his wife, and was now required to convey the disputed property to 27 feoffees, headed by John, Lord Berners, and including our MP.12 C1/24/147; CCR, 1447-54, p. 498. At the parliamentary election of 1453 Gloucester and Hunt, officiating as constables of the borough, had joined the bailiff of Southwark in drawing up the indenture with the sheriff of Surrey. In February 1456 Gloucester was one of the recipients of Hunt’s gift of his goods and chattels.13 C219/16/2; CCR, 1454-61, p.119. Such experience at a local level qualified him for further offices and in October 1457 he was elected to the important and often onerous post of coroner in Surrey, a position he held for four years.14 C242/11/24.

This marked a change of course in Gloucester’s career, so that during the 1450s, while continuing to trade as a grocer he began to be styled ‘gentleman’ or even ‘esquire’. Besides the coronership, he took on administrative duties in Sandwich, where he served on a commission of inquiry into piracy in January 1458 before being appointed collector of customs for the same port in the following November, a post possibly secured as a consequence of his commercial activities. A dispute over trade may well have been behind the suit for trespass brought against Gloucester and others earlier in the decade by John Payn I*, the highly litigious merchant from Southampton who had successfully set up in business in London through membership of the Grocers’ Company. It is less clear how Gloucester had come to be involved in transactions regarding the manor of Norton near Alton in Hampshire, in which two members of the Paulet family, who owned the manor, had been bound to him in £200.15 CPR, 1452-61, p. 373; CCR, 1447-54, p. 410.

After he ceased to be a customs official in Sandwich, in February 1460 Gloucester was sworn as the city of London’s bailiff in Southwark, a post he may have held continuously until July 1479 when the next appointment was made by the City. The choice of Gloucester was doubtless a reflection both of his standing in the borough and his trading activities in London itself. Responsibilities as bailiff may, however, have left him unable to carry out the duties of coroner of Surrey effectively; in July 1461 the election of a new coroner was ordered, on the grounds that he was insufficiently qualified for the post.16 CCR, 1461-8, p. 42. In February 1462 Gloucester secured a pardon from the Crown in which he was described as an esquire, gentleman and grocer of Southwark as well as a former collector of customs at Sandwich.17 C67/45, m. 45. As ‘esquire’ in May 1472 he witnessed a quitclaim of lands in Chertsey made by (Sir) Robert Fiennes*, the former sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. He continued to be resident in Southwark: in July that year an inquisition was held after a house there belonging to him jointly with John Hunt and William Corin was entered illegally.18 CCR, 1468-76, no. 896; C244/115/23. Finally, in February 1477 he was appointed to a commission to inquire into the poaching of swans and cygnets on the river Thames. His death probably occurred early in 1479. In May 1484 his widow, Joan, made a formal gift of her goods and chattels to her daughter, Eleanor, although it is unclear whether the latter was Gloucester’s heir.19 CCR, 1476-85, no. 1246.