Family and Education

Offices Held

Coroner, Dunwich Sept. 1428-9; bailiff 1429-31, 1440-1, 1446-7.1

Biography

In November 1413 Russell shared with three others a grant by the Crown of the custody of the alien priory of Creeting (Suffolk). This he continued to enjoy until replaced on 18 Dec. 1420 (probably the last day of the Parliament in which he was then representing Dunwich) by Thomas Russell, a London fishmonger to whom he was perhaps related.2

Russell attested the Dunwich elections to the Parliaments of 1423, 1426, 1429 (while coroner), 1433, 1435 and 1450, and as bailiff he was responsible for making the returns in 1431 and 1447. A mason by trade, he contracted with another mason from Blythburgh to undertake the rebuilding of Walberswick church tower, agreeing in February 1426 to accept as payment 40s., a cade of herring (600) and a robe for every year the project took. In August 1435 a debt of 20s. owing to Russell was acknowledged in the borough court at Dunwich. For much of his career he held property in All Saints’ parish, including tenements which had once belonged to John Randson† and Augustine Knight* and a vacant plot near the cemetery; and in March 1448 he acquired more land in the same parish from John Luke*.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: K.N. Houghton

Notes

• 1. T. Gardner, Hist. Dunwich, 79; C219/14/1, 2.
• 2. CFR, xiv. 46, 366.
• 3. C219/13/2, 4, 14/1, 2, 4, 5, 16/1; Gardner, 157-8; SC11/886; Add. Chs. 40679, 40728. He may have been the Richard Russell ‘of Ubbeston’ (some ten miles inland from Dunwich) who died in 1452. Thomas Russell of Dunwich who died in 1495 referred in his will to his father, Richard, but whether this was our MP is uncertain: Gardner, 52; Ipswich RO, wills IC/AA2/1.