PUXTON, John (c.1567-1627), of Salt Lane, Salisbury, Wilts.

Nothing is known of Puxton’s parentage. Apparently an attorney practising in Salisbury, he acquired several properties in the vicinity.11 Wilts. RO, 930/1; G23/1/3, f. 126v; 2057/S5/3; Wilts. IPMs, 407-9; Surveys of manors of Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery ed. E. Kerridge (Wilts. Rec. Soc. ix), 49. His legal training and services rendered to the corporation during the quo warranto proceedings of the 1590s probably explain his election to Parliament in 1601.12 Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, ff. 130, 140v. He made little further impression upon the records of the corporation, but this was evidently through choice rather than inability, as in 1600 he had waived parliamentary wages in return for five years’ exemption from the mayoralty, and in 1606 he paid £10 to extend this exemption for life.13 Ibid. ff. 166, 168. He nevertheless supported Giles Tooker* in securing the city’s charter in 1612.14 VCH Wilts, vi. 104. In view of his avoidance of municipal responsibility, it is unclear why Puxton should have been chosen to represent the borough again in 1626, although hardly surprisingly he left no trace upon the records of the session.

Puxton’s will of 14 Feb. 1627 suggests a modest estate: in it Puxton left £40 to his only unmarried daughter, £100 to his grandchildren, and small sums to the rector and church of St. Edmund’s. Puxton also conveyed land at Odstock to his son and executor John, to satisfy his outstanding debts. Absent from the March council meeting due to illness, Puxton died shortly thereafter, perhaps a victim of the plague then raging in Salisbury. He was buried at St. Edmund’s on 2 Apr. next to his first wife, Jane, who had died of plague in 1604.15 Wilts. RO, 1901/1. His i.p.m. gives his death date as 10 Apr. (Wilts. IPMs, 409). In August 1629 Puxton’s second wife, Margaret, commenced a suit against Salisbury’s corporation for payment of her late husband’s parliamentary wages, for which she was eventually awarded 20 nobles.16 PROB 11/151, f. 447; Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, ff. 346v, 351. The family also quarrelled over his estate: one son-in-law, claiming possession of his widow’s jointure lands in Salisbury, seized all of Puxton’s papers; his heir was still suing for their recovery in 1647. No other member of the family sat in Parliament.17 C2/Chas.I/P38/45; 2/Chas.I/P51/64; 2/Chas.I/E14/43.