AUNCELL, Robert

A wool merchant by trade, Auncell’s parentage is unknown. When he first appears in the records he was already established as a merchant of the Calais staple. In the autumn of 1424 he was one of many staplers who lost wool when two shipments sank in heavy weather in transit from Kingston-upon-Hull to Calais.2 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 348-9. At this early stage in his career he was living in Grimsby. In 1432 he was an arbiter in a dispute in that Lincolnshire port over two ships of Bishop’s Lynn which several Grimsby burgesses, including Richard Fulnetby* and John de See*, had retaken from French captors; and two years later, described as ‘of Grimsby’, he was among the Lincolnshire residents required to take the parliamentary oath not to maintain peace-breakers.3 N.E. Lincs. Archs. Grimsby bor. recs., ct. rolls 1/101, 10 Hen. VI; CPR, 1429-36, p. 382. He was also styled ‘of Grimsby’ when, in May 1436, he had assignment in repayment of a loan of £10 to the Crown: E 403/723, m. 2. Yet, perhaps because of the greater commercial opportunities available there, he settled in Kingston-upon-Hull soon afterwards. In 1437 he purchased the freedom, and thereafter his rise to prominence within the town’s mercantile elite was rapid. When the first aldermen of the newly-constituted town and county of Kingston-upon-Hull were named on 23 May 1440 Auncell was among their number, and in September 1441 he was chosen as one of the sheriffs.4 Bench bk. 1, BRG 1, f. 18v; Kermode, ii. 27, 34.

On 27 Jan. 1449 Auncell’s was among the four names put forward by his fellow aldermen for election to the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster the following month, but the commonalty passed him over in favour of the mayor, Hugh Clitheroe*, and John Killingholme*. Later that year, on 3 Nov., he was again among the four individuals from whom the commonalty chose their parliamentary burgesses, but it was not until 19 Feb. 1453 that he was elected. 5 Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, ff. 4, 7v, 23, 31v. His only election to Parliament was soon followed by successive terms as mayor and coroner, and he remained active in the town’s administration until his death. Late in 1460 he was appointed as one of those chosen to oversee the new works at Myton Gate, and with other leading burgesses he contributed towards the cost of a new chain across the south end of the Humber to improve the town’s defences. In 1461, with John Spencer I* and Nicholas Ellis*, he was appointed as one of the keepers of the keys to the new chest in the council chamber; and in 1463 he again acted with Spencer and Ellis when they together provided an armed man to serve on the northern border under the warden of the east march, John Neville, Lord Montagu. His last recorded duty as an alderman was in August 1464 when he admitted a new inmate to the Maison Dieu; and he was dead a year later when he was replaced on the aldermanic bench.6 Ibid. ff. 74, 79, 82, 92, 93, 94v, 106v.

Beyond this bald record of his administrative activities, most of what else is known of Auncell’s career concerns his trading activities. In 1439, along with his servant and John Ormesby, a local shipman, he was indicted before royal commissioners of inquiry for smuggling £56-worth of skins and 600 fells, valued at £12, in a Dutch ship. Later, in 1446, along with John Scales*, he complained to the King’s council that he had had goods stolen at sea from a ship called The Lyon, then anchored in Kingston-upon-Hull. On this latter occasion, the mayor, Hugh Clitheroe, was commissioned to investigate the claims, although the outcome of the investigation is not known.7 E159/217, recorda Easter rot. 8; CPR, 1422-9, p. 349; 1446-52, p. 41. As a merchant of the Calais staple, Auncell also lent money to the Crown. From the late 1440s he had contributed to loans made by the Company in concert with other northern merchants, and in October 1454, along with Clitheroe and the York stapler, John Thirsk*, he was licensed to ship wool free of customs to the value of £124 5s. 5½d. in repayment of old loans.8 CPR, 1452-61, p. 212. It is tempting to connect the frequency with which Auncell appears to have sought election to the Commons between 1449 and 1453 with his concern to secure such repayments. His connexions with the world of commerce beyond Kingston-upon-Hull are also revealed by a grant of goods and chattels he made to the London mercer, Thomas Rekes, in February 1453.9 CCR, 1447-54, p. 465.