biography text
Thomas was the most obscure member of a family prominent in Reading for at least three generations. His putative father, a local smith, had sat in Parliament in 1380. On the occasion of his own election, in 1397, John Kent I appeared as one of his sureties. There is little else to relate, save that in 1411 he was granted a tenement in the town to hold jointly with John Clerk I.1Reading Pub. Lib. deeds, 71, 72; E179/73/42; C219/9/13. William Selham, bailiff in 1435 and mayor in 1438-9 and 1442-3, was possibly his son: Reading Recs. ed. Guilding, i. 1, 8, 15; C219/14/5.