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ELLIS, Robert II, of Great Yarmouth, Norf.
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Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
?s. of Robert Ellis I*.
Offices Held
Bailiff, Yarmouth Mich. 1413-14, 1416-17, 1422-3, 1426-7, 1429-30, 1432-4, 1437-8, 1442-3.1
J.p. Yarmouth 17 Feb. 1415-aft. July 1443, Norf. 8 Nov. 1423-July 1424.
Commr. to keep the sea for the protection of fishermen, Norf., Suff. Oct. 1415.
Collector of customs and subsidies, Yarmouth 28 Feb. 1416-19.
Biography
Like his older namesake, whose son he may have been, Robert Ellis traded in salt and fish, notably herring and cod. Early in 1413, during his kinsman’s last bailiffship, he was a member of a committee of ten Yarmouth burgesses authorized to draw up certain ordinances ‘for the good governell herafter to be had of heryng comyng to the town’, and, when these had been ratified by the bailiffs and commonalty, to seal them. He was master of a dogger allowed to leave port by special royal licence of April 1413, all movement of shipping having been prohibited on the accession of Henry V a month earlier.2 Later in the year he followed Robert Ellis, senior, as one of the four bailiffs of the town; and went on to hold that office nine times in all, being also appointed as such when, in 1426, the number of bailiffs was reduced to two as part of a complete reorganization of the borough’s system of government. As part of his duties he made the return of the elections to the Parliaments of 1423, 1427 and 1433. In addition, he was recorded as one of four or five burgesses present at the elections of 1425, 1429 (when he also provided securities for one of the Members-elect, John Manning, the lawyer who was at that time steward of the liberties of Bishop’s Lynn), 1431 and 1435.3 As nothing more is heard of him after his last appointment as a j.p. in Yarmouth in July 1443, which year was also his last as a bailiff, it seems likely that he died soon after.
