WIGMORE, Thomas

As bailiff of Bishop Low’s liberty, Wigmore witnessed the indenture of 7 Dec. 1448 settling the jurisdictional dispute between the city of Rochester and the local cathedral priory of St. Andrew. Ibid. It was perhaps as a further part of the attempt to heal the rifts between the two sides that he was returned as an MP for the city less than two months later. Being present in the county court at the time, he attested the return of the knights of the shire for Kent to the same Parliament.

Other evidence for the obscure Wigmore is singularly lacking. Yet, given his service to Bishop Low, who had been translated from St. Asaph’s in 1444, it is possible that he was a kinsman of the Wigmores of Herefordshire. This family had connexions with Kent through Roger Wigmore†, who had served as lieutenant of Dover castle in the 1380s. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 858-9. Thomas may also have been a kinsman of John Wigmore, one of the chaplains of the chapel at Rochester bridge. In 1444-5 John travelled to London to secure a large donation to the bridge from the executors of Lord Fanhope, and he remained a chaplain of the bridge until at least 1460. Rochester Bridge Trust, wardens’ accts. 1444-5, FO 1/44; E326/2082. Thomas’s relationship – if any – to John Wigmore, ‘son’ of Katherine Martin of Faversham, widow of John Septvans of the Isle of Thanet is unclear. Katherine married three times and her second husband may have been the MP. This John died in 1493 seised of lands in Kent. He left two daughters. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 948; C147/149; C1/32/278; CFR, xxii. 447; Archaeologia Cantiana, xl. 115-16.