Family and Education

b. by 1481, s. of Thomas Baldry (d.1500) of Ipswich. m. (1) Alice; (2) Christine.3

Offices Held

Claviger, Ipswich 1502-3, bailiff 1502-3, 1507-8, 1513-14, 1518-19, 1522-3, j.p. 1502-d.; commr. subsidy 1504, 1512, 1514, 1515, 1523, 1524, gaol delivery 1504, 1512; weigher, port of Ipswich Feb. 1510-d.4

Biography

Thomas Baldry’s father and grandfather sat for Ipswich in the 15th century and his elder brother Sir Thomas Baldry was lord mayor of London in 1524. Little is known of Baldry himself, apart from the details of his municipal career, but he was evidently a prosperous merchant and his property was valued at 1,000 marks for the subsidy of 1524. In 1503 he was a party to Sir John Audley’s sale of lands in Ipswich to Edmund Daundy, later his fellow-Member. Baldry and Thomas Alvard were elected to the Parliament of 1504 on condition that they accepted wages at half the standard rate, but it is not known whether Baldry made the same bargain for his later Parliaments.5

Baldry died either in 1524 or early in the following year. His will, made on 18 July 1520, was proved on 27 May 1525. He left his wife 100 marks in money, 100 marks in plate and 100 marks in good debts, an annuity of £40, a house and lands and her own plate and jewels, ‘rather better than worse than it was when she and I married’. The rest of his property went to his own and his wife’s relatives, including his lands in Middleton and Fortley to a William Baldry and a tenement in Stowe to William’s brother Thomas. His widow took as her second husband Thomas Rush.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: John Pound

Notes

• 1. Ipswich ct. bk. 7, p. 312.
• 2. N. Bacon, Annals Ipswich , 188.
• 3. Date of birth estimated from first reference. PCC 34 Bodfelde.
• 4. Bacon, 175-99 passim; LP Hen. VIII, i, iii, iv; Statutes, iii. 83, 116, 173; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 360.
• 5. Suff. Green Bks. x. 415; CCR, 1500-9, p. 75; Bacon, 176; Ipswich ct. bk. 4, p. 478.
• 6. LP Hen. VIII, i; PCC 34 Bodfelde.