ADAMS, John (by 1511-71/75), of Peterchurch in Pembroke and St. Petrox, Pemb.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1511, s. of William Adams of Peterchurch by Maud, da. of Sir William Perrot of Haroldston. m. by 1532, Catherine, da. of Thomas ap Dafydd, at least 1s. Henry.1

Offices Held

Receiver and bailiff, lordships of Cilsain, Carm. Angle, Burton, Carew and Upton, Pemb. by 1541-Feb. 1543; commr. subsidy, Pembroke 1543, 1546; escheator 1546-7, 1554-5, 2 Feb.-?Dec. 1559, 1560-1; alderman, Pembroke by 1547; j.p. Pemb. by 1558/59-62.2

Biography

John Adams was the first Member for Pembroke Boroughs. He was elected on the same day as the knight of the shire Thomas Jones, who was related to him by marriage. As Jones’s domicile at Haroldston was given on the return for the county, so was Adams’s home at ‘Patrikeston’ near Pembroke on that for the Boroughs; it is this which establishes the Member’s identity and distinguishes him from his better known namesakes, among them a registrar of notes, orders and queries in the court of Chancery. Adams may have enjoyed official support as he was at the time receiver of four lordships near Pembroke then in the crown’s possession: this post passed in 1543 to Lewis Watkins who was to sit for the Boroughs in the next Parliament, when Adams is listed as one of the electors. Nothing is known about his part in the House but presumably the experience encouraged him to support his son Henry’s candidature in 1553. Assessed for subsidy in 1543 on lands worth £20, Adams figured in both town and county for upwards of 20 years, and his disappearance from public life after 1562 may have reflected growing age rather than unreliability in religion. Two years after the death of his wife in 1569 he was found to be in unlawful possession of her lands in Carmarthenshire. He was dead by 1575 when his son Henry was recommended by his kinsman Sir John Perrot as a justice of the peace.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from marriage. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 130, 172.
  • 2. Pemb. Recs. (Cymmrod. rec. ser. vii), iii. 204-5, 244; C219/19/157; CPR, 1560-3, p. 522; E179/223/431.
  • 3. Pemb. Recs. 217; C219/18C/187; E179/223/431; Augmentations (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 270-1.