BREMESGROVE, William

While Bremesgrove’s family undoubtedly originated in Worcestershire, it has not been possible to discover at what date members of it left that county and settled in Wiltshire. On chronological grounds it is just possible that he was the man, then residing at Kidderminster, who served as a tax collector in Worcestershire in 1401, but no concrete evidence to connect this individual with the later Devizes MP has been discovered.2 CFR, xii. 116.

What is clear is that by the reign of Henry V Bremesgrove was well established in the Wiltshire cloth town he was to represent in the Commons. In late 1414 he was serving alongside John Coventre III* as one of the proctors of the local church of St. Mary.3 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Wilts. deeds, 212B/2274. His trade or craft is obscure, and the law suits to which he was occasionally party offer no clues. Thus, in the autumn of 1422 he was suing a Shaftesbury bell-founder for the sum of £5 11s. 2d., perhaps once again on behalf of the parish church, while in 1432 he was associated with Coventre and another leading Devizes burgess, William Smith*, in seeking to recover £9 from the butcher John Rogger, this being once more evidently in an official capacity, as he styled himself the ‘former mayor’ of Devizes.4 CP40/647, rot. 92; 688, rot. 387d. By this date, his only documented mayoralty lay back some ten years, so it is possible that he held the office again in the interim.