SMITH, Edmund (by 1508-36), of Cressing Temple, Essex.

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 1508, 1st s. of Sir John Smith of Cressing Temple by 1st w. Anne, da. and h. of Edward Wood of London; half-bro. of Francis Smith. m. by 1530, Barbara, da. and h. of Sir John Hampden of Theydon Mount, Essex, 1da.1

Offices Held

Esquire of the body by 1533.2

Biography

Edmund Smith probably owed his return to the Parliament of 1529 to the influence of his father, a prominent financial official who rose to be a baron of the Exchequer. Smith himself may have held a minor post in the Exchequer, for in September 1533 he obtained the reversion of the remembrancership there in succession to his father, but the few glimpses of him suggest that he was a minor, but favoured, servant at court. Evidently he was held in some regard, for Archbishop Cranmer sent him a buck in the summer of 1533.3

Smith made his will on 30 Mar. 1536, 12 days after his fellow-Member John Holdiche had died and two weeks before the King dissolved Parliament. He left all his property in Essex, Kent and London to his only daughter, who was then about six years old. He appointed his brothers Thomas and Edward his executors and ordered them to pay his debts. He died soon afterwards, the will being proved on the following 26 June. By that time the new Parliament, summoned for the early summer, had been in session for over two weeks, and as the King had asked that the previous Members should be returned again it is possible that before he died Smith was again chosen at Helston.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 175, 459; Morant, Essex, ii. 156.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, vi.
  • 3. Ibid. vi.
  • 4. PCC 33 Hogen; C1/1184/41.