DOCKING, Walter

In 1433 Docking was party to a covenant between the commonalty of Worcester and the city’s cathedral priory. Through this agreement, intended to improve the water supply of the priory, the citizens licensed the monks to pipe water along the city’s ditches and under its walls to their house, in return for a nominal annual rent of a rose.2 Ibid. It is possible that Docking also served a term as a bailiff of Worcester shortly before gaining election to his only known Parliament.3 According to T.R. Nash, Worcs. ii. app. p. cxi, Walter ‘Vepping’ (probably a misreading for Doppyng) was one of the bailiffs in 1435-6, although a list in Worcester Chs. 194, names Robert Belne and Robert Walsshe as the bailiffs that year. He disappears from view after the 1430s. Hugh Docking, a spicer by trade,4 CFR, xvii. 150. was probably a relative. Hugh was one of the bailiffs of Worcester in 1450-1,5 C219/16/1; Worcester Chs. 83. and he attested the city’s elections to the Parliaments of 1453 and 1472.