The Swerds were settled in Derby at least as early as 1381, when Peter Swerd, an ironmonger, was one of the assessors for the poll tax in the borough. Thomas Swerd, who was perhaps Peter’s son, was named on a Derby jury panel in 1414, and in 1421 he was sued by James Tuchet, Lord Audley, for illegal hunting in his park at nearby Markeaton. He was dead by February 1425 when his widow Agnes was the defendant in an assize of novel disseisin.
On 16 July 1455 Swerd attended the parliamentary election at Derby, and on 8 Nov. 1459 he himself was elected to the Parliament summoned to take action against the Yorkist rebels. The return is slightly irregular in that his name, together with all bar the initial letter of his fellow Member’s surname, have been added over an erasure. It may be that those originally elected by the burgessess refused to serve.