NYWAMAN, John, of Exeter, Devon.

In 1389 Nywaman, together with his wife, completed a conveyance of eight acres of land in Alphington and Cowick, and it was in her right that he later held a messuage in High Street, Exeter, on a lease granted by St. Nicholas’s priory.CP25(1)44/65/98; Exeter City RO, mayor’s ct. roll 12 Hen. IV m. 41. He became a freeman of the city on 15 Sept. 1404, within just a few days of his election to Parliament, and, doubtless to provide an incentive for the journey to Coventry, he was exonerated from payment of an admission fee. (Coventry was less popular as a venue for Parliament than Westminster, where opportunities for the transaction of personal business were more readily available.) Although he was named on the panel of electors of the civic officials in 1405, 1408, 1410, 1411, 1412, 1417 and 1418, he himself never occupied a local office, and the surviving evidence suggests that he was a landowner rather than a townsman.Mayors’ ct. rolls 5 Hen. IV m. 52, 7 Hen. IV-6 Hen. V. Described as ‘of Devon’, in 1409 he stood surety in Chancery for two Kentish men; he attended the elections of the knights of the shire in April 1413 and November 1421; and as one of the jurors selected from the hundreds of the shire, rather than from the city of Exeter, he served on grand juries when the justices of oyer and terminer held sessions in the county town in 1414.CCR, 1405-9, p. 493; C219/11/1, 12/6; KB9/205/2 m. 50, 3.