RUSSELL, Richard

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 254-5.

While the official return for the Dunwich election of 1427 states that Russell and John Polard* were elected to represent the town in the Parliament of that year, a contemporary borough minute book shows that it was Philip Canon* who sat with Polard in the Commons. The reason for Russell’s withdrawal is not known, but it was probably not due to ill health, because he was appointed to assess a tax the borough imposed upon its residents to cover the cost of sending burgesses to the same assembly. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 132; C219/13/5.

The minute book, kept by the bailiffs of Dunwich, also provides other details about Russell’s career. It shows that he owed his burgess status to birth-right, since he was born in Dunwich, Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 73. and that he was a figure of some significance locally. When the town reorganized its system of government in December 1419, he became a member of a new, smaller borough council, an appointment renewed in September 1422. Ibid. 8, 100-1, 118. Yet tax assessments show he was not particularly wealthy. When, for example, the borough authorities imposed a land fine on the town’s inhabitants in 1422, to raise money to pay for a confirmation of Dunwich’s charter, Russell paid 3s., far less than John Moreff*, one of the leading burgesses, who had to pay 13s. 4d. Ibid. 107. Furthermore, at the end of the same decade, he contributed 2s. to the building of the town’s east quay, whereas Moreff again paid a mark. Ibid. 142, 143. Russell also made a loan to the community in August 1424, when he advanced 3s. 4d. towards its expenses in defending its liberties against the keeper of Dunwich’s fee farm, Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter. Ibid. 119.

At some stage in the early 1460s, a Richard Russell sued his business partner, Nicholas Lane of Nayland, for taking all the profits of certain merchandise that the two men were supposed to have shared in common. If the plaintiff was the man who had represented Dunwich in Parliament, the previous biography is wrong in suggesting that the MP was the Richard Russell of Ubbeston who died in 1452.. C1/28/378; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 255.