SNAWDEN, Thomas

The pewterer Snawden was one of the more obscure men to represent York in Henry VI’s reign. His parentage is unknown, but he was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1396.4 Freemen of York, 97. Little evidence survives of his early years, but he was of sufficient standing to be chosen as one of the chamberlains in February 1414, and that autumn he attested the city’s parliamentary election indenture.5 C219/11/5. In the autumn of 1416 he was elected sheriff, and membership of the council of 24 followed not long after his discharge from the shrievalty: he was recorded as attending his first council meeting in this capacity in September 1418. In subsequent years, Snawden played a regular part in the government of the city. In April 1425 he once again witnessed the parliamentary election indenture. At this time, he was still a member of the 24, and he remained so into that summer.6 C219/13/3. By September 1427, however, he had joined the ranks of the aldermen, and it was in this capacity that, on 15 Sept. that year, he was returned to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Westminster on the following 13 Oct. His fellow MP on this occasion was the wool merchant John Bolton*. Bolton’s election may have been related to the affairs of the company of the staple at Calais, but, given the absence of evidence relating to their time at Westminster, the reasons behind Snawden’s election are less clear. In any case, Snawden was back in York by 12 Apr. 1428, when he attended a meeting of the city council.7 York Memoranda Bk. ii. 183.

In February 1432 Snawden was elected mayor of York. Within days of his coming to office he was named to a commission to deliver York gaol, but no other evidence of his activities during his mayoral year (apart from the routine witnessing of local deeds) survives. On completion of his term, he resumed his place on the aldermanic bench.8 York Memoranda Bk. iii (Surtees Soc. clxxxvi), 104, 105, 158. His last recorded public activity was to attest the parliamentary election probably held towards the end of December 1436.9 C219/15/1.

Scant evidence survives of Snawden’s private affairs. He was certainly the most prominent pewterer in the city during the early fifteenth century, with trading contacts across the country. In 1430 he was in dispute with a London grocer, Richard Burton, over a bond for £20. As a result, some of Snawden’s tin and pewter vessels were seized by the sheriffs, but the officers struggled to find buyers for them.10 CP40/677, rots. 199, 279d. At another point, possibly even before his involvement in the city’s government, he led his fellow pewterers in a supplication to the chancellor. Snawden, William Coveram and ‘other pewterers of the city of York’ complained of one Thomas Wyllerby, who was ‘one week occupying the mystery of pewterers and another week the office of moneyer’. They asked the chancellor for a writ directed to the mayor of York instructing him to discharge Wyllerby of the office of moneyer, as the combination of the office and trade in his hands had, so they claimed, redounded to the ‘great peril, mischief and deceit’ of the rest of the city’s pewterers.11 C1/69/28.

Snawden made his will on 8 May 1438, asking to be buried in his parish church of St. Michael le Belfry. He made bequests of 6s. 8d. for the fabric of York Minster and to each of the mendicant orders in the city. There was also provision for a priest to offer prayers for two years for him and his first wife, Agnes. A servant, Richard Chester, was rewarded with 6s. 8d., while the remainder of Snawden’s goods and chattels were to be disposed of at the discretion of his executors, as was his sole remaining piece of property, a tenement in the Shambles then occupied by the butcher Thomas White. The execution of his will was entrusted to his widow, another Agnes, the tanner Robert Allerton and the pewterer Thomas Peny, who before long were embroiled in litigation over Snawden’s debts. Probate was granted on the following 12 June.12 Dean and chapter wills, 1, ff. 245v-6; C1/9/221. The will made no mention of Snawden’s son, William, who had gained the freedom of the city in 1429 by patrimony.13 Freemen of York, 142.