FRERE, Walter, of Wycombe, Bucks.

A member of an old-established Wycombe family,2For an earlier Walter, who d. c. 1350, see Reg. Black Prince, iv. 50; HMC 5th Rep. 561. Walter was a relation, possibly a son, of William Frere, one of whose transactions he witnessed in 1371. In December 1388 he was present at a meeting of the Wycombe corporation when it conveyed a tenement in Crendon Lane to William Depham and others, and in the following year he himself sold a house in the town to Henry Colshull. In 1396 he was amerced before the manor court of Bassetsbury for failing to repair a house called ‘Cutudes’ which he occupied. He served as a juror in 1412 during the holding of an assize of novel disseisin at Wycombe, for the settlement of a dispute over land between William Clerk II and Ralph atte Lude.3HMC 5th Rep. 561-2; First Ledger Bk. High Wycombe (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xi), 37-38; CP25(1)21/106/26; St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs. XV/15/1 mm. 1-2; JUST 1/1/79/5.

Like others among his fellow burgesses, Frere may well have been a farmer, for he held three virgates of agricultural land in the manor of Bassetsbury in 1410, retaining them until at least 1421, when the last recorded notice of him occurs.4DL29/652/10554; SC6/764/12, 13.