WRIGHT, John

A gentleman who was not involved in trade, R. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 211. Wright is sometimes difficult to distinguish from various namesakes who also lived in Colchester, making the cursus above somewhat speculative. Colchester ct. rolls 1437-40, 1455-7, 1463-4, D/B 5 Cr55, m. 40; 56, mm. 13, 16; 57, m. 10d; 66, m. 1; 67, mm. 1, 2d; 72, m. 8. Perhaps a resident of North Street, he may have originated from Suffolk, John Wright of Stoke Nayland was admitted a burgess in Oct. 1444 and a namesake from Cavendish became a freeman a year or so later: ibid., 1444-5, 1447-8, D/B 5 Cr60, m. 4; 62, m. 22; Colchester ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 92. and it is possible that he was a lawyer. A John Wright was the borough’s attorney when it defended its fishery on the river Colne against the claims of the earl of Oxford in the court of King’s bench during the late 1440s, and in 1450 an attorney of that name represented several plaintiffs from Essex, including the prior of St. Botolph’s Colchester, in the common pleas. KB27/750, rot. 92; CP40/757, rots. 273, 385d.

Wright saw jury service when (Sir) John Prysote* and other commissioners of oyer and terminer came to Colchester in February 1453. He and the other jurors, who included John* and William Foorde* and Nicholas Peek*, presented that their fellow burgess, William Lecche*, and others at Colchester had risen in support of Jack Cade in July 1450. It is hard to believe that Lecche had really supported Cade – if only because he had become one of the bailiffs of the borough a few months after the revolt – and it is possible that personal enmities lay behind the indictment. KB9/26/1/17.

Wright was frequently a feoffee and witness for other burgesses, and occasionally for members of the Essex gentry. Colchester ct. rolls D/B 5 Cr64, m. 18d; 65, mm. 9, 19d, 21; 69, m. 24; ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 98v; CAD, i. B593; C1/27/187. In 1451 John Saveyn* made him the overseer of his will, Colchester ct. roll D/B 5 Cr64, m. 13d. as did William Bonefaunt the elder of Colchester, who referred to the MP as his ‘mayster’, 14 years later. Ibid., 1466-7, D/B 5 Cr73, m. 28d. He was also an executor for John Baron I* and was possibly the John Wright whom the Essex esquire Thomas Knyvet appointed to perform the same role in his will of 1465. Ibid.; Test. Vetusta ed. Nicolas, 294.

An alderman by the early 1450s, Wright subsequently served as a bailiff and j.p. He ceased to hold office at Colchester in 1474 but lived for at least several years after that date. At the beginning of 1476, he sued the then bailiffs of the town in King’s bench for non-payment of his wages as a burgess in the Parliament of 1472. Entitled to a daily allowance of 2s., he sought £31 12s. for the 316 days he had spent attending the Parliament and journeying to and from Westminster where it was held. KB27/858, rot. 36d; 859, rot. 39d. He was certainly still alive in November 1477, when he was party to a conveyance of property at Colchester. Colchester ct. roll, 1477-8, D/B 5 Cr77, m. 27d.