BONFAY, Walter

Originating from Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, Bonfay was a merchant who had business dealings in Colchester some years before he became one of its burgesses. He was a defendant in the borough court as early as November 1411, and again in 1419. On the second occasion the plaintiff, Stephen Flyspe, claimed that he had entrusted woollen cloth and other merchandise to Bonfay, formerly his bailiff and receiver, to sell on his behalf, but that Walter had subsequently failed to account for what he had done with these goods. In reply, Walter argued that he had not been Flyspe’s servant, and won the case.4 Ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr38, m. 7; 41, mm. 19, 22, 28d; 42, mm. 4, 6. Bonfay obtained the franchise of Colchester in October 1422, after he had paid an entry fine of 33s. 4d. He traded in cloth and he is likely to have had business dealings abroad as well as locally, since in the mid 1420s he sued Cristoforo Stella, a Genoese merchant, for debt in the borough court. His business interests were sizeable enough for him to employ a receiver, and in 1437 he sued Robert Loundes, who had recently served him in that role, for failing to account for £10.5 Ibid. D/B 5 Cr43m. 5; 46, m. 26d; 54, m. 26; 56, m. 4.

Bonfay began his career as an office-holder in September 1425, when elected to the positions of coroner and member of the borough’s council. In the following decade, he served several terms in the offices of alderman and bailiff, and it was during his second period as an alderman that he was elected to his only Parliament. In December 1439, at a time of nationwide dearth, he was one of several merchants from Colchester whom the Crown licensed to purchase grain in Norfolk and Suffolk and to ship it, free of customs and subsidies, to their own town.6 CPR, 1436-41, p. 355.

Bonfay made his will (no longer extant) in 1440-1 and is likely to have died soon afterwards (he was certainly dead by the autumn of 1447).7 Colchester bor. recs., ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 89d; ct. roll, D/B 5 Cr62 m. 16d. His son and namesake also pursued a career in Colchester, so it is unlikely that the younger William was the man appointed to collect a tax in the MP’s home county of Cambridgeshire in March 1442. The tax collector was probably William Bonfay of Arrington, who died in 1471. William held property at Wimpole, so he was almost certainly the MP’s relative.8 Ct. rolls D/B 5 Cr70, m. 23; CFR, xvii. 218; PCC 4 Wattys (PROB11/6, ff. 27v-28).