Family and Education

1st s. of John Pecke, jurat and mayor of Winchelsea, by Mary, da. of James Blechendon of Aldington, Kent. m., at least 10s. suc. fa. c.1581.1

Offices Held

Jurat, Winchelsea 1590.

Biography

When, in 1586, the Queen granted Winchelsea part of the estates formerly belonging to the Black Friars there, Pecke secured 12 acres of arable land near Catsfield, a windmill near King’s Green for 12d. and a messuage and two gardens in the town for 6d. Pecke, as his christian name suggests, was connected with his neighbour and fellow-member for Winchelsea, Adam Ashburnham, some of whose marshland at Pevensey he occupied and who was an overseer of his father’s will. He also held some property of Adam Ashburnham’s half-brother, Lawrence Levett of Hollington, who was another neighbour. Among his relatives was John Pecke of Winchelsea who, in his will dated March 1602, gave to Ashburnham Pecke and his ten sons reversionary interests in his estate. Pecke was the ‘Member named Peck’ to whom ‘Black’ Oliver St. John spoke when he was trying to whip up support for Wentworth’s proposed speech on the succession in 1593, but no certain evidence remains of Pecke’s one membership of Parliament. As a burgess of a Cinque Port he would have been entitled to attend committees concerned with fish (5 Mar. 1593) and statutes (28 Mar.).2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.E.M.

Notes

• 1. Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 134; PCC 77 Montague; Lewes Archdeaconry, wills register, A7, f. 186; E. Suss. RO, Winchelsea mss; HMC 9th Rep. pt. 1, 306.
• 2. Suss. Arch. Colls. xxviii. 95; W. D. Cooper, Winchelsea, 107-110; Lewes wills, loc. cit.; PCC 18 Lewyn, 5 Windsor, 77 Montague; EHR, xxxix. 187-8; Harl. 6846, f. 88; D’Ewes, 487, 511.