WALL (WELL), Henry, of Ipswich, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

m. bef. June 1394, Alice.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Ipswich Sept. 1391-2.1

Biography

Henry was probably related to Hugh Wall, who was seven times a bailiff of Ipswich between 1372 and 1394. A merchant, he is recorded in October 1388 making a shipment of grain and cloth from Ipswich. He was closely associated with John Arnold I even before their service together as bailiffs and as parliamentary burgesses: in August 1391 their predecessors as bailiffs had leased to the two of them a plot of ground some 200 yards in length on the bank of the river Orwell, in order that they might build two water-mills and, having recouped their expenses from the profits, grant them to the town in aid of the fee farm. On 14 Feb. 1394, while Parliament was in session, Wall and Arnold both stood surety for the appearance before the King’s Council of their fellow townsman, William Master*. Wall obtained a royal pardon of outlawry in November 1395 for failing to attend the court of common pleas to answer a man from Sudbury for a debt of £37.2

Wall had an interest in a number of properties in Ipswich. In June 1391 he had purchased land in St. Mary’s parish, and three years later he and his wife received, by gift of James Andrew*, a moiety of certain holdings, for which they were to pay an annual rent of £2 6s.8d. Together with Arnold, the Walls occupied two tenements with granges in St. Mary’s from September 1394. Perhaps in order to escape the consequences of his outlawry, that December Wall conveyed all his property and goods in the town to the rector of Sall (Norfolk) with the exception of certain holdings in St. Mary’s which he entrusted to the keeping of the rector of Claydon in the following June. In August 1396 he and his wife released to John Arnold and John Knepping* a quay, shops and a crane. Meanwhile, seven months earlier he had obtained from Arnold land at Ufford and in the suburbs of Ipswich.3

Wall is last recorded in March 1397 when he and Arnold were listed among the witnesses to a settlement on Sir John Howard* of a manor at Broke (Suffolk).4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: K.N. Houghton

Notes

  • 1. E368/165; C219/9/8.
  • 2. E122/50/33; CPR, 1391-6, pp. 100, 527; 1399-1401, p. 159; CCR, 1392-6, p. 254.
  • 3. Ipswich RO, recog. rolls 11-14, 16-23 Ric II.
  • 4. CCR, 1405-9, p. 501.