ABBOT, William

The three Abbot brothers all benefited from the will of the merchant Thomas Cole† (d.1413) of Weymouth, who made them and their sisters heirs to his property should his only son die without direct heirs. William Abbot’s legacy was a remainder interest in certain burgage tenements in Melcombe, and in addition he was assured of another house in the same town after the death of Cole’s widow.1 PCC 27 Marche (PROB11/2A, f. 212). He was probably the youngest of the brothers, and a less prominent figure in the neighbouring communities of Weymouth and Melcombe. Whereas Robert represented Melcombe in 1420 and 1421, and John sat for neighbouring Weymouth in 1423, several years were to elapse before William himself entered the Commons.

Nevertheless, William was named among the leading men of Melcombe who, according to a petition submitted to the Parliament of 1433, sought the removal of royal customs officials from their port to that of Poole, since the latter place was more heavily populated and better protected against attack from the French. The trading activities of Abbot and other merchants, notably the wealthy John Roger† of Bridport, had been severely affected by Melcombe’s vulnerability. Melcombe was accordingly demoted from its status as a head port.2 J. Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 450, but Hutchins’s source cannot now be traced. John Roger is the only one of the merchants named in PROME, xi. 125; SC8/126/6255 and CPR, 1429-36, p. 298. Abbot served as a juror at the mayor’s court held in Melcombe in April 1434, at which John Bartelot, the parson of Buckland Ripers, was indicted for breaking into the home of John Bowell and abducting his wife.3 KB9/996/34. He was pursuing his own lawsuits in Michaelmas term 1435, when he went to the court of common pleas in person to sue Matthew Whitmore, a yeoman from Gillingham, for a debt of £4. Whitmore’s failure to appear in court to answer the charge led to his outlawry, but he obtained a royal pardon on 15 Feb. 1437,4 CP40/699, rot. 354; CPR, 1436-41, p. 8. probably after he had come to terms with Abbot, who at that date was attending Parliament in the session which met at Westminster from 21 Jan. to 27 Mar. that year. Abbot had been mentioned in the previous autumn when he engaged the support of three former knights of the shire for Dorset (William Carent*, Robert Tourges* and Thomas Hussey I*) in securing his title to a messuage and some 340 acres of land near Weymouth, at Corfe Hill, Broadway and Nottington, as well as a rental income of 46s. 8d.5 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 349. The later descent of these properties is uncertain.

Abbot made few appearances in the records subsequently, save as a defendant in a suit for debt in the court of common pleas, and twice (in July 1443 and July 1455), as being summoned to appear as a juror at the assizes regarding cases of alleged smuggling from Melcombe and Poole.6 CP40/757, rot. 344; E143/24/1, 7.