ASHWELL, Richard (d.1392), of Gloucester.

From 1377 Ashwell occasionally witnessed conveyances dated at Gloucester.3Gloucester Corporation Recs. 1001, 1003, 1005, 1026. The burgess roll that he compiled with his fellow bailiff Roger Resceyvour in September 1381, at the end of his first term as bailiff, is still extant. Re-elected for a second term that autumn, now in association with Richard Baret, he received on behalf of the commonalty in March 1382 a donation by Alice Sherston of an annual rent from local property. During his final term of office Ashwell was responsible, in May 1391, for making a valuation of the possessions of Robert Aston in Gloucestershire, for the payment of Aston’s debts, and it was while still bailiff that in the same year Ashwell represented the town at the assize of novel disseisin brought by the prior of Llanthony by Gloucester against the bailiffs of the previous year ( John Banbury I and Robert Pope) and the commonalty. Immediately after laying down office Ashwell was returned to the Parliament which assembled on 3 Nov.4Ibid. 1008; Gloucester Guildhall roll 1350; C131/39/6; CCR, 1389-92, pp. 249, 264.

Ashwell died at an unknown date between May and July 1392. His heir was his son Thomas, to whom in 1398 the town authorities granted a 70-year lease enabling him to enlarge his shop next to St. Michael’s church.5Gloucester Corporation Recs. 1027, 1038; CFR, xi. 84. Thomas’s will was dated 20 Sept. 1406: C115/K2/6682, f. 144.