HUSSEY, Thomas I, of North Bowood, Dorset.

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

s. of James Hussey of Hampton, Som. by Joan Dullar of Dullar in Lytchett Matravers, Dorset. m. Joan, da. of John Bowood of North Bowood, 1s.1 Thomas II*.

Offices Held

J.p. Dorset 10 Nov. 1389-97.

Escheator, Som. and Dorset 24 Oct. 1392-24 Nov. 1394

Commr. of inquiry, Som., Dorset Mar. 1393 (concealments), Som. Apr. 1394 (goods of an outlaw).

Alnager, Dorset 23 Nov. 1395-23 Oct. 1396.

Biography

According to Hutchins, Hussey came from a family which had been established in Somerset and Dorset since the Conquest. Nevertheless, it is uncertain which properties in those shires he himself owned at the time of his only election to Parliament. If, as seems likely, his marriage to Joan Bowood had by then already taken place, he perhaps held the manor of North Bowood, and no doubt he also possessed land inherited from his father.2

Hussey’s earliest recorded associations were with members of the prominent Dorset families of Manningford and Turberville. In 1375 Roger Manningford† demised to him and John Manningford custody of the manor of Okeford Shilling, for the duration of the minority of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Stephen Turberville, in return for an annual rent of 40 marks; and in the following year Hussey made a settlement of property in Blandford St. Mary on Roger Manningford and his wife. Hussey was occasionally asked to witness deeds, one such, dated at Wareham in 1386, being a conveyance of land to Sir Robert Turberville*. Meanwhile, in 1382-3, he had been party to transactions concerning land in Somerset pertaining to his kinsman John Pokeswell, and in 1396 he himself was to be assigned a remainder in property in the same county, at Hampton and Batheaston, which would, however, only fall to him on the death of Margaret, his stepmother, and in the event of the failure of the line of another relative, Thomas Barley.3

When he entered the Commons as representative for Dorchester in 1395, Hussey was serving as a j.p. in Dorset, and had the experience of two years, employment as royal escheator of the joint bailiwick of Somerset and Dorset behind him. Later in the year he was appointed alnager in the locality, but his public service ended, perhaps with his death, in 1397. The modest achievements of the father were to be outshone by those of the son, Thomas Hussey II.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. C138/47/57. J. Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 160-4, using later genealogical material, gives a different version of the Hussey pedigree.
  • 2. Hutchins, iii. 160-4; iv. 312.
  • 3. CCR, 1374-7, pp. 323-4, 531; 1385-9, p. 292; Dorset Feet of Fines, 133; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xvii), 115, 166.