WELWETON, John

In the absence of a John Welweton more closely linked with the impoverished Dorset borough of Lyme Regis, it is safe to assume that the MP was the man of this name who achieved some prominence in the neighbouring county of Somerset. The family may have originally lived at Welweton or Welton in the parish of Midsomer Norton, and John’s mother came from Moreton, not far away. A namesake of John’s was active in the county in the closing years of the fourteenth century, and attended the baptism of Lord Saint Maur’s nephew at Beckington in 1408. He was still living in 1431.6 CCR, 1396-9, pp. 518-19; CIPM, xxiii. 602. The connexion with Lord Saint Maur provides a tangential link with Lyme Regis, for heir’s lands were placed in the keeping of Sir Thomas Brooke*, whose parents had been granted custody of Lyme for term of their lives and continued to exert influence over its parlty. representation: The Commons 1386-1421, i. 372-3; ii. 379. For the most part the two men may be distinguished by the description ‘junior’, which was applied to the younger John well into the 1420s.7 Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 66. It was probably the older man who attested the Somerset elections to the first Parliament of Henry V’s reign,8 C219/11/2. but the career of the younger had begun by the following year, 1414, when he was enfeoffed of land at Sturminster in Dorset in which Robert Veel† had an interest.9 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 283-4. This connexion with Veel, a prominent lawyer and clerk of the peace in Somerset, is also an indicator of Welweton’s choice of career, and perhaps of how he was guided in its early stages. The association continued for a while longer, for in 1416 Welweton made a quitclaim to Veel and a number of others, headed by no less a person than the chief justice, Sir William Hankford, of lands in Wiltshire. He was then called John Welweton ‘the younger alias John Wodehay’.10 CCR, 1413-19, p. 293. For suits for debt against him 1431 as alias Wodehay and of Salisbury, gentleman, see CP40/680, rot. 219. It may be presumed that he was related to a man who shared his two surnames, Thomas Welweton alias Wodehay, who lived at Barrington in Som., especially as in 1442 John was called ‘late of Barrington’ in another suit for debt: CCR, 1413-19, p. 519; CP40/724, rot. 18d. Yet he also occasionally went by another alias, Davy, which was noted in 1417 when he obtained a pardon of outlawry for failing to appear in the central courts to answer suits for debts amounting to over £32. His place of residence was then stated to be Salisbury.11 CPR, 1416-22, p. 25.

Indeed, before his election to Parliament the glimpses afforded of Welweton in the records fail to present a coherent picture. When, in 1424, he was being sued for debt in the common pleas by the abbot of Glastonbury, he was described as ‘of Chilcompton, gentleman’; but another suit linked him with property at Sherborne in Dorset, and with the Dorset j.p. Walter Biere†.12 CP40/653, rots. 186, 318. As someone who had received at least a modicum of training in the law it is not surprising to find him acting as a feoffee, and being called upon to serve as a juror at inquisitions post mortem. In the latter capacity he appeared at Crewkerne in May 1426 to give evidence about the landed holdings of the many-times-married Alice, widow of the wealthy Sir William Bonville†.13 CIPM, xxii. 621. Of members of the Somerset gentry with whom Welweton came into contact the most prominent was Sir Giles Daubeney*, with whom he was associated in the following year, when together they brought suits for debt in the court of common pleas.14 Som. Feet of Fines, 66. This was a connexion which was long to continue. Welweton accompanied Daubeney to the Parliament of 1429, in which Sir Giles sat for the second time as a knight of the shire for Somerset, and 16 years later the knight was to remember him in his will, by leaving him a ‘great coffer’ for bed linen, and other bequests.15 Som. Med. Wills, 1501-30 (Som. Rec. Soc. xix), 342. How Welweton came to be elected for Lyme Regis may not now be discovered, but it might be that his candidacy proved acceptable because he agreed to serve the borough for little or no remuneration. While up at Westminster for the Parliament he carried on his own private business, appearing in the common pleas to finalize transactions relating to land in Somerset.16 Som. Feet of Fines, 75.

After his parliamentary service was over, Welweton continued to serve occasionally as a juror, doing so, for example, at the post mortem of Sir John Luttrell, held at Taunton on 9 Oct. 1430.17 Honour of Dunster (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxiii), 198. Two months later he attended the Somerset elections held at Ilchester on the first of as many as nine occasions, becoming one of the most regular attestors to the parliamentary indentures. This new prominence may indicate that he was already occupying the office of a coroner in the county, a post he was certainly holding by March 1434. He was not to be dismissed from the coronership for 30 years or longer, until at an unknown date in the reign of Edward IV the ‘sick and aged’ man was no longer capable of carrying out his duties. In the course of this long period of office Welweton was a juror at sessions of the peace at Taunton in May 1438, indicting Sir Edward Brooke* and other malefactors for illegally entering the property of the earl of Devon at Lynch in North Petherton, and 20 years later he was a juror in Dorset at the inquisition post mortem for the same earl.18 KB9/231/1/124-6; C139/169/38.

Little is recorded about Welweton’s personal affairs, save that in April 1449 he made a quitclaim of a meadow known as ‘Goldemede’ and other land in Moreton which had once belonged to his great-grandparents to William Venour esquire and William Tailor, and later that same year he and his wife conveyed to Venour more property in the same place.19 CCR, 1447-54, p. 119; Som. Feet of Fines, 112. Welweton lived to old age. He last attested the Somerset elections in May 1467, and during the chancellorship of George Neville, archbishop of York, which ended in June that year, he was summoned to Chancery to answer a petition regarding the lands in Somerset of the late esquire Alexander de la Lynde, who had named him as a feoffee along with William Stourton*, Lord Stourton, and others.20 C219/17/1; C1/31/128. Welweton probably died soon afterwards, for he was not among the feoffees who exercised de la Lynde’s right of presentation to the church of Sevenhampton St. Michael in June 1470.21 Reg. Stillington (Som. Rec. Soc. lii), no. 169.