BOWLAND, Richard

Richard may have been related to John Bowland, who collected tolls in the diocese of Winchester for Cardinal Beaufort in 1439 and became ‘my Lord Cardynall’s keeper of the Pawlyn’ (the court of pavilion) before September 1442.2 Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 11M59/B1/180 (formerly 159435); Southampton City Archs., steward’s bk. SC5/1/6. He himself, a draper by trade, was resident in Winchester by 1430, when he contributed towards parliamentary subsidies as living in the High Street aldermanry, perhaps next to the shop for which he paid rent in the 1440s. Later, he and his wife acquired from John Parys* (his fellow MP in 1453) a tenement next to St. Martin’s church in Parchment Street, and it may have been there that they were living when assessed for the subsidy collected in 1464. They also held an adjacent building.3 D.J. Keene, Surv. Winchester (Winchester Studies 2), ii. 1171, nos. 157, 318-19; Hants RO, Winchester recs. W/E4/5.

Bowland became involved in civic affairs in 1432, when he acted as auditor for the commons, and he subsequently rose to be bailiff of the commons, and, following his admission to the 24 in 1440, bailiff of that more senior body too. With the junior bailiff he made the formal response to the sheriff of Hampshire recording the result of the Winchester election to the Parliament of 1442.4 C219/15/2. He contributed 3s. 4d. towards the wages of the parliamentary burgesses of 1445-6.5 Winchester recs. W/E4/4. Bowland attained the highest civic office a few years later, and was duly presented as mayor at the Exchequer on 27 Sept. 1450.6 E368/223, Mich. rot. 1. The sum of 37s. 1d. was collected towards the wages of Bowland and Parys as representatives in the Parliament meeting at Reading and London in 1453-4, and they were also paid £2 for certain costs incurred there. They both witnessed a deed registered in the city court in favour of Henry Smart* on 4 Apr. 1453, during a parliamentary recess, and Bowland later stood surety for Smart’s attendance at the next Parliament, summoned in 1455.7 Winchester chamberlains’ accts. W/E1/20; Stowe 846, f. 155v; C219/16/3. He continued to take an active role in local affairs, for on 23 Jan. 1456 he was one of 16 members of the council of 24 elected to serve with 18 members of the commons on a special body to deal with a crisis in civic administration, and he was re-elected mayor in the following year. As had become customary, he was given £2 for his expenses travelling to Westminster to take his oath at the Exchequer.8 Black Bk. 86; chamberlains’ accts. W/E1/22. In May 1462 he was one of a dozen Winchester men granted the farm of alnage in the city and elsewhere in Hampshire for 21 years for a payment of 50 marks p.a., of which 40 marks was assigned to the commonalty by royal grant,9 CFR, xx. 74. and not long afterwards 20s. was paid him as a reward, probably for carrying out business in London in the interests of the city. He served on a panel of citizens which in January 1467 attempted to settle the quarrel between John Kent and John Calley, and in September following he was the senior member, after the mayor, of a committee of eight sent to negotiate with Bishop Waynflete, who had cut off the water supply to the city mill of Coytebury. He was still an active participant at meetings of the convocation in November 1471.10 Chamberlains’ accts. W/E1/23; Black Bk. 89, 91, 105.

Bowland served as a juror at sessions of the peace held at Winchester in November 1475,11 KB9/110/5. and was last recorded in the following year, when he and his wife conveyed their house in Parchment Street to John Putte†.12 Keene, ii. no. 318. Richard may well have been the father of Thomas Bowland, elected bailiff of Winchester in 1475, mayor in 1481 and MP in 1484.