WATERDEN, John (d.1435), of Bishop’s Lynn, Norf.

Unlike other members of his family, who were merchants, John trained to be a lawyer. He is first heard of in May 1410 as ‘of Norfolk’, when standing surety in Chancery for the release of a local man from prison. In 1419, along with his kinsmen, Thomas and Richard Waterden, he assisted in the conveyance of a messuage in Bishop’s Lynn to Thomas Hunt I, and after the latter’s death, 14 years later, he offered legal advice to his widow, who by then had married Thomas Burgh.CCR, 1409-13, p. 111; CP25(1)169/185/36, 187/90. Two months after Waterden had completed important legal business in London on behalf of the borough in October 1423, it was agreed by the general assembly of burgesses that he should be formally retained by the town council at an annual fee of £2, which was to apply as from the previous Michaelmas.King’s Lynn Town Hall, assembly bk. 2, f. 40. In 1427, once more with his putative brother, Richard, John acted as a feoffee of property in Lynn, and few months later did likewise in the interest of John Parmenter. At the time of John’s second election to Parliament his kinsman was mayor-elect (he died a few months after taking office), but he himself never attained the mayoralty, and, indeed, was not to be made a jurat until the deaths of Bartholomew Petipas and Philip Frank created vacancies in the council of 24 in September 1432. He is last recorded in May 1434, when listed among the Norfolk gentry required to take oath not to contravene the laws regarding maintenance, and he died the following year.CPR, 1429-36, p. 406; CP25(1)169/186/31, 47; Lynn assembly bks. 1, ff. 5, 10, 2, f. 68d.