Family and Education

m. Alice, 1s.

Offices Held

Dep. butler Tawmouth and Ilfracombe 12 Oct. 1407-c.1413, Dartmouth 8 Feb. 1408-12.1

Commr. of arrest, Devon Dec. 1409.

Biography

There were at this time two inhabitants of Barnstaple called John Hunt, they being father and son. It is most likely to have been the father who served the borough in Parliament.2 John Hunt senior, who traded in wine and was also a clothier, was a member of the merchant guild of St. Nicholas. He had been one of 11 burgesses who in 1378 had joined the mayor in granting a lease of the town’s bakery, and it was with an equally select group that he served as a trustee of property granted to meet the cost of repairs to the long bridge. Although he was a collector of dues for the town and occasionally witnessed deeds there, he is not known to have occupied any of the more important local offices. However, at Whitsun 1390 he rode with John Bidewell* and another Barnstaple man to the sessions of the peace at Exeter on a matter concerning the commonalty.3 On 12 Oct. 1407, eight days before Parliament assembled at Gloucester, and probably after Hunt’s election as representative for Barnstaple, he was appointed by Sir John Tiptoft*, the chief butler, as his deputy in the river mouth of the Taw and at Ilfracombe; and only two months after the Parliament was dissolved he was given a similar post at Dartmouth.

He died before June 1415, when his widow and his son purchased, for £8, a house opposite the guildhall and backing on to North Street. Hunt’s other property was later given by his grandson, Henry, to Master John Holman, as a benefaction to St. Anne’s chapel.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. CPR, 1405-8, p. 371. No evidence has been found to identify him with the John Hunt who was bailiff of the duchy of Cornwall stannary of Penwith and Kerrier in 1399-1400 and 1404-5, or with he who in Feb. 1400 was granted the office of parker of Chittlehamholt for life (SC6/819/10, 15; CPR, 1399-1401, p. 188).
• 2. But the contrary opinion is given in Trans. Devon Assoc. lxxi. 260.
• 3. E101/338/11, 122/40/23; C146/10042; North Devon Athenaeum, Barnstaple, deeds 629, 834, 928, 931, 3972 f. 2; A7.
• 4. Barnstaple deeds 474, 475, 477, 489, 492, 496; Trans. Devon Assoc. lxxx. 155.