ALDERFORD, John

Alderford was clerk of the staple at Norwich for considerably longer than previously noticed,3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 19-21. since he was in possession of that office by mid 1414. While in London during his last Parliament, he and his fellow MP, Thomas Ingham*, consulted the lawyers Thomas Rolf and William Yelverton* about the dispute between the corporation of Norwich and Norwich priory.4 Norf. RO, Norwich city recs., view of treasurers’ accts. 1429-30, NCR 7d. Alderford was still alive at the beginning of 1434 when John Berney, John Fastolf* and John Kirtling, a servant of Fastolf’s prominent kinsman, Sir John Fastolf, formally acknowledged owing 100 marks to Sir Simon Felbrigg and others. As a security for this debt, Berney and his associates put their names to a bond in statute staple, made at Norwich on 19 Jan. that year in the presence of the mayor, Richard Purdance†, and of Alderford in his capacity as clerk of the local staple.5 C241/228/26. Later that decade or in the early 1440s, John Chamber sued Alderford’s widow in the Chancery over the manor of Scoulton in Norfolk, in which the late MP had possessed an interest as a feoffee of the plaintiff’s family.6 C1/41/335.