Family and Education

b. by 1530, o. s. of John Stempe of Lewes. m. Anne, prob. at least 1s. 1da. suc. fa. July/Nov. 1553.1

Offices Held

Constable, Lewes 1555-6, 1563-4, 1572-3; subsidy collector, Southover 1560.2

Biography

From his father and namesake, a burgess of Southover and constable of Lewes, John Stempe inherited property in Fletching and Lewes, armour and silver spoons. His election to the Parliament of November 1554 with John Morley, the constable whom he was to succeed in the following year and with whom he had served as a feoffee in 1551, accorded with the Queen’s request for resident Members; their receipt from the town of £6 10s. between them represented a wage of 1s. a day each for their 66 days of attendance. Stempe’s further services to the town included a successful visit to London in 1557 as a trustee of its grammar school, to contest the crown’s appropriation of the income which maintained the school, and a contribution of 10s. in 1564 towards the cost of a market hall.3

In 1564 Stempe leased lands in Falmer, near Brighton, and by 1580 he had obtained possession of the manor of Southover, once (like Falmer) held by Anne of Cleves and granted to John Kyme III and Richard Kyme in 1557; in 1582 Stempe and his wife sold it to Thomas Sackville, Baron Buckhurst. No further reference has been found to him but he was probably the father of the Anne Stempe who married Herbert Springett of Lewes and of the William Stempe elected constable of Lewes in 1598.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: R. J.W. Swales

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. PCC 20 Tashe; Suss. Rec. Soc. xlviii. 45; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 145.
• 2. Suss. Rec. Soc. xlviii, 9, 14, 21; Suss. Arch. Colls. xlviii. 20.
• 3. Suss. Rec. Soc. xix. 164; xxxvi. 138-9; xlviii. 2, 8, 15; lvi. 96.
• 4. CPR, 1557-8, pp. 198-9; 1569-72, p. 330; Suss. N. and Q. xii. 69; VCH Suss. vii. 48, 224; Suss. Rec. Soc. xx. 412; xlviii. 45; Vis. Suss. 145.