PERESSON, Robert

There is contradictory evidence of Peresson’s origins. He may have been a kinsman of Richard Peresson of Glentworth, about 25 miles to the south-west of Grimsby, who attested seven Lincolnshire parliamentary elections between 1413 and 1427. When, however, he himself first appears in the records he was living at Barton-upon-Humber, about 18 miles to the north-west of Grimsby: in 1435, described as a chapman of Barton, he was sued for a debt of seven marks by a mercer of Coventry.2 Lincs. Archit. and Arch. Soc. iv. 43; CP40/699, rot. 595d. To add to the uncertainty, on his first appearance in the records of the borough in which he made his home, he is designated as ‘of York’. As such, in 1441-2 the borough authorities paid him two marks for the cost of obtaining millstones for the town’s water-mill, with a further 2s. for his trouble.3 Grimsby bor. recs., chamberlains’ accts. 1/600/13.

Thereafter Peresson settled in Grimsby. On 7 Jan. 1449 he was admitted to the freedom of the borough with his two sons, George and Ralph, for the standard fine of 40s. Nine days later he served on a jury of 12 which elected William Grimsby* (for whose father, John, he was then a feoffee) and Richard Duffield*, to represent the town in the forthcoming Parliament; and on 23 Mar. 1451 he sat on a jury to elect a chamberlain. His own office-holding began with a curious juxtaposition. On 17 May 1452 a jury of all the burgesses elected him as one of the eight auditors of the borough accounts; and on the same day he was presented by the chamberlains for stabbing one Thomas Wodehouse in the hand in an affray in which he sustained a similar injury from his victim. This presentment had no adverse impact on his career. At the following Michaelmas he was elected to the more important office of bailiff, and he clearly now numbered among the leading burgesses.4 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 27-30 Hen. VI; ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 3. Nothing, unfortunately, is known of the trading interests that must have underpinned this status.

Peresson’s career continued in the same pattern throughout the 1450s. In June 1455 he served on a jury of inquiry into the town’s sewers; in September 1458 he was one of the 36 burgesses who participated in the mayoral election; and in the following August he acted as attorney in the borough court for one Henry Barett.5 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 33, 37 Hen. VI; roll of election of mayor and bailiffs 1/310/1. His own election to Parliament on 2 Sept. 1460 is the last reference to him. He and his fellow Member, Hugh Edon*, were returned in preference to John Cok and Thomas Broughton†, who were either defeated candidates or, less probably, the two MPs returned at an earlier now-aborted election.6 Bull. IHR, xlii. 218. One can only speculate as to whether this apparent contest reflected divisions in national politics. There is some evidence that Edon followed the Yorkist cause, but our MP’s disappearance from the records makes it impossible to speculate on his political sympathies.