GAMEL, Thomas, of Shrewsbury

This MP came from one of the oldest of Shrewsbury families, of which several members were masons. Among their number was the Thomas Gamel who represented the town in Parliament in 1336 and died in 1355, leaving his extensive property there and in Meole Brace to his son by Margery Offeley, John, then a minor, and to his daughter Eleanor, who later married John Perle senior. It has been suggested that the Member of 1393 was their younger brother and that he lived in Barker Street,1Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), i. 18-20; iv. 223, 230; v. 288, 393-400; (ser. 4), xii. 156. but there is no mention of him in the elder Thomas’s will and, indeed, his name does not appear in any of the extant Shrewsbury records.2Although there is ample evidence for the activities of John Gamel and John Gamel junior, the latter being town clerk in the reign of Henry V. It was possibly this Thomas Gamel, described as ‘of Knighton’, who witnessed several conveyances between 1411 and 1419 relating to lands in Dorrington (some six miles south of Shrewsbury).3Shrewsbury Lib. deeds 2164-5, 2168-9, 2288, 2335, 2369.