DRAPER, Gilbert (d.1417), of Bridport, Dorset.

Draper, who was engaged in the local cloth trade, paid a fee of 20s. admission to the freedom of Bridport, and acquired two adjacent houses in South Street.3E101/343/29; Dorset RO, B3/D2, ff. 89v, 91, 121v. In 1389 he provided securities at the borough court for Sir Humphrey Stafford I of Hooke, who was then contesting ownership of property in the town, and in November 1406 he joined him in petitioning for a royal licence to alienate the manor of ‘Bromelegh Castle’ and property in Dorchester, Melcombe and Bridport, of which Draper’s contribution was to be a burgage in Bridport, to the Benedictines of Abbotsbury. The request, however, was apparently refused. In 1412 Draper appeared on a local jury giving evidence for the collection of a royal aid, and in May 1413 he attended the shire court at Dorchester to inform the sheriff of the results of the Bridport parliamentary elections.4Dorset RO, B3/C34; C143/438/21; Feudal Aids, vi. 427; C219/11/2.

Draper made his will on 19 Mar. 1417. He wished to be buried in St. Mary’s church, Bridport (where he had been churchwarden in 1404-5), and left 6s.8d. to the rector for forgotten tithes. His other monetary legacies totalled no more than 10s. The executors, Walter Bagge, chaplain, and John Palmer II, were to spend 13s.4d. (the rent from one of his houses) on his obit, which to be celebrated every year on the Wednesday after St. Barnabas’s day (11 June). ‘The obet of Gybe Draper’ was still being kept in 1460.5Dorset RO, B3/D2, f. 132; M11, f. 44; HMC 6th Rep. 494.