SLANNING, Nicholas (1523/24-83), of Plymouth, Devon.

Nicholas Slanning seems to have been meant to follow his father into the service of Plympton priory; in 1538 he joined his father as bailiff of its manor and grange at Plympton, but its dissolution put an end to this phase of his career. His appointment as town clerk of Plymouth in succession to James Horswell doubtless owed something to the standing of both his father and his uncle John Slanning, a rising lawyer and local landowner. His marriage with a granddaughter of John Amadas was to link Slanning with several leading families in the town, notably those of Buttockshide and Hawkins, and such ties would have reinforced his official claim to be one of its Members. Nothing is known of his part in the Commons. After his father’s death he settled at Bickleigh, which his uncle John had bought, and it was there that he died on 8 Apr. 1583, four days after making his will.Devon Monastic Lands (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. n.s. i), passim; J. E. Kew, ‘The land market in Devon’ (Exeter Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1967), 187; Trans. Dev. Assoc. xix. 452-4; E150/181/2; 179/99/321; NRA 4154, pp. 128, 157; Plymouth receivers’ acct. bk. 1546-50; black bk. f. 297v; PCC 63 Noodes, 18 Rowe; CPR, 1558-60, pp. 75, 76, 242; C142/200/11(2); Mill Stephenson, Mon. Brasses, 89.