BAINBRIDGE, William (d.1583), of Derby.

Bainbridge may have come originally from Nottingham, where his wife’s relatives were mercers. He had been living in Derby for some time by November 1554, when he first represented the town in Parliament. The only reference found to him in the Elizabethan Parliaments is to leave of absence granted 16 Mar. 1563.

He was buried 5 May 1583 at All Saints’, Derby. His will, drawn up on 22 Apr. 1583, was proved on the following 29 Oct. It has a long preamble, stressing reliance on nothing but the merits and passion of Christ, and contains a bequest of 40s. annually in perpetuity to Derby corporation for the maintenance of a public preacher, with additional benefactions of £40 to build a schoolhouse and £40 to the poor of the town. His wife received property in Derby, probably including the house and site of Blackfriars priory, which a ‘William Baynbrigge the elder’ (assumed to have been the Derby Member) had bought early in 1562. She was also left Bainbridge’s water mills, and all his goods and plate. Several gold rings worth 10s. each, inscribed with the words, ‘I live in Christ’, were to be made for friends and relatives, including his cousin and supervisor William Bainbridge of Lockington. The eldest son, Robert, was appointed sole executor, and another son, Daniel, received a bequest of £100.1Leics. Archit. and Arch. Soc. Trans. vii. 144-5, 238, 249, 262-3; C1/1101/21; J. C. Cox, Churches of Derbys. iv. 99; CPR, 1560-3, pp. 375, 385, 531; 1566-9, pp. 123, 414; J. C. Cox, Derbys. Annals, i. 88; W. Hutton, Hist. Derby, 80-l; Coke, Institutes(1671), iv. 18-19; CJ, i. 69.