Family and Education

1st s. of William Pellatt^† educ. Corpus, Camb. 1548; G. Inn 1551. m. Mary, 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1558.

Offices Held

Biography

The Pellatts were an old Sussex family, paying tax at Steyning as early as 1296, and though they did not achieve county status until the time of Richard Pellatt’s son Benjamin, it may be assumed that Richard Pellatt was of sufficient standing to secure his own return to Parliament in the election of 1572, when, in any case, all three local magnates—Henry, Earl of Arundel and his sons-in-law the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Lumley—were in the Tower. In February 1581, on the marriage of his son Benjamin to Dorothy Lewknor, he enfeoffed his manors of Charlton and Ashurst for their benefit. He added to his Sussex property in 1584 by buying Bignor park, near Petworth, and (unless this is a namesake) in his later years he married an Essex heiress and moved to that county, dying, according to the inquisition post mortem, 21 Jan. 1587. There is a discrepancy in the dates of the contemporary documents, as administration of his estate, describing him as ‘late of Maldon’, Essex, is stated to have been granted to his widow, Mary, on 16 Jan. that year.

Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 153; D. G. C. Elwes and C. J. Robinson, Castles, Mansions, Manors of W. Sussex, 32, 34; Suss. Arch. Colls. xxxviii. 101-22; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 229, 427, 430; CPR, 1555-7, pp. 227, 285; 1558-60, p. 447; Add. 5685, ff. 42, 91; C142/214/222; PCC admon. act bk. 1587, f. 1.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

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