COKEMAN, Robert, of Wareham, Dorset.

Cokeman was a leading burgess of Wareham, and it was during his mayoralty that important new constitutions and ordinances for the government of the borough were drawn up. He travelled to Dorchester to report to the sheriff the results of the Wareham elections to the Parliaments of 1414 (Apr.), 1420, 1421 (May) and 1422; and the fact that he was similarly empowered by the burgesses of Weymouth in the autumn of 1414 suggests either that he traded in Weymouth, or that he was in some way involved in the administration of the earl of March’s estates, to which the boroughs of Wareham and Weymouth both belonged. Meanwhile Cokeman had acted as a feoffee of lands in ‘la Baillye iuxta Yetminster’ for John Stretch of Milborne, a prominent landowner in Dorset.2J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 82, 89; C219/11/3, 5, 12/4-6, 13/1.