HADDON, Thomas

The Haddon family had been established in Sandwich since the middle of the fourteenth century, when John Haddon, a royal serjeant-at-arms, was granted the office of bailiff by Edward III. Thomas was probably the son of Robert Haddon†, a local merchant who had been mayor and had represented Sandwich in the Parliament of 1410, or of his kinsman, another Thomas, who was an alderman and local shipowner.4 C1/5/13; Sandwich deeds 1311-1421, SA/TB 1. Robert was still alive in 1421 when he claimed exemption from the parliamentary subsidy in the hundred of Wingham.5 E179/124/88, 93. The name of our MP’s mother, however, is given in a deed of 1 July 1430 when as ‘son and heir of Juliana Haddon’ he granted an annual quitrent of 6s. 8d. from a tenement in ‘Metacreslane’, Sandwich, to William Rawlyn.6 Boys, 381.

By the close of 1432 Thomas was already one of the jurats. On 6 July 1435 he was elected as the town’s bailiff to the annual Yarmouth herring fair and 19 days later he was present when his appointment was confirmed at a meeting of the Brodhull. Fortunately for Haddon, and somewhat unusually, the Ports’ bailiffs were received in accordance with their liberties by the bailiffs of Yarmouth, who duly handed the keys of the town’s prison over to the Portsmen for the duration of the fair. Following their return home Haddon was present with his fellow bailiffs to report on their reception at a special meeting of the Brodhull on 16 Dec.7 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 25; White and Black Bks. 6, 7. Further employment in the affairs of Sandwich came on 27 Dec. the following year when he was elected to his first Parliament, along with John Cock I*.8 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 33; D. Gardiner, Historic Haven,136. Nothing is known, however, of his time at Westminster. On 2 Dec. 1437 Haddon was elected to the first of three consecutive terms as mayor. While in office he attended two meetings of the Brodhull and carried out routine duties, such as the witnessing of local deeds, but his third mayoral year was marked by a severe period of dearth in the town and by the appearance of a comet in the skies above Sandwich, believed to be a portent of more hardship to come. At the end of his mayoralty in December 1440 he returned once again to the ranks of the jurats.9 White and Black Bks. 12, 13; Boys, 53.

During the early 1440s Haddon was clearly one of the most respected members of the jurats’ bench. He attended six meetings of the Brodhull between April 1441 and October 1446 and in June 1442 he was chosen as one of the arbiters on behalf of the commonalty to settle the dispute over debts owed to the former mayor, John Green I*.10 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 57v; White and Black Bks. 14-22. It is not clear whether it was this matter that was the cause of Haddon’s own quarrel with Green, but in July 1443 the two men entered into bonds of £100 to keep the peace towards each other. In January 1447 Haddon was elected to his second Parliament alongside John Boteler III*, although the details of their activities at Bury St. Edmunds are not known. On the following 12 July it appears he was again chosen as Sandwich’s bailiff to the Yarmouth herring fair, but when the election of the bailiffs was confirmed at the Brodhull 12 days later it was his fellow jurat, William Fennell*, who was named instead. In December that year he was once again chosen as mayor and one of his duties in that office involved acting as arbiter in a dispute between his quarrelsome neighbour, John Green, and Walter Langley. In January 1449 he found himself once more chosen as one of the parliamentary barons for Sandwich, and travelled to Westminster with his fellow jurat, John Drury*.11 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 62, 71, 73, 74v; White and Black Bks. 23. On 22 Apr. Haddon rode to New Romney for a meeting of the Brodhull, doubtless to report on the Parliament’s first session. On the following 20 Oct., along with William Fennell, he was again chosen to represent the Port at another Parliament, called to assemble on 6 Nov. He may have agreed to serve for this his third consecutive Parliament on the condition that he was excused the duties of a jurat for 1449-50, and, indeed, when the elections for the town officers were held on 1 Dec. 1449 he was not among the 12 men named.12 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 75, 76; White and Black Bks. 25.

On his return from the final parliamentary session at Leicester in the summer of 1450 Haddon again resumed his local responsibilities and in December he was chosen once more as a jurat. The record of the municipal elections of the following year are not extant, but it seems likely that Haddon continued to serve as a jurat until his death. In July 1451 he was one of the six jurats who attended the first court of Shepway held by the new warden of the Cinque Ports, Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham. On 20 Feb. 1453 he was named as one of the deputy mayors to John Nesham† and on the following 24 July he attended a meeting of the Brodhull.13 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 70v, 90v; White and Black Bks., 31. His last recorded duty was to inquire into an act of piracy. Several Hanseatic merchants claimed that their ship, sailing out of Colchester, had been captured and taken to Sandwich. A royal commission, led by the warden of the Cinque Ports and the mayor of Sandwich, was appointed in December 1454, with Haddon as one of its members.14 CPR, 1452-61, p. 223. He was last named among the jurats in December 1456. It is likely that he died the following year, perhaps being, along with the mayor, John Drury, a casualty of Pierre de Brézé’s raid on the town in August. He was certainly dead by May 1459 when a garden formerly belonging to him in St. Mary’s parish was in the possession of St. Bartholomew’s hospital.15 Boys, 69.

Haddon appears to have married twice: together with his wife Constance in March 1446 he demised property in St. Mary’s Lane, Sandwich, to John Nesham and another jurat, Simon Leycestre; and his widow was named Joan.16 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 69v, 115v. The family background of both women, however, remains obscure. Some sources state that he married Agnes, widow of William Brugges or Bridges, Garter King of Arms. In fact, this Agnes was Haddon’s sister. In his will of 26 Feb. 1449 (perhaps made in the presence of Haddon who was then attending the Westminster Parliament) Brugges appointed his wife and Thomas Haddon, ‘her brother’, as his executors and left a silver chalice to St. Mary’s church in Sandwich.17 Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 189v. The settling of Brugges’s estate clearly caused him some problems. He and Agnes sued John Gargrave*, the former marshal of the Marshalsea, for £16 13s. 4d. owed to Brugges by a debtor Gargrave had wrongfully released from custody. In 1452 he took the step of having two debts due to him and his sister (and formerly owing to Brugges) enrolled on the dorse of the close roll, and on 10 Oct. 1455 he and Agnes purchased a royal pardon as Brugges’s executors.18 KB27/759, rot. 46; CCR, 1447-54, p. 424; C67/41, m. 26.