NELME, Robert, of Thornbury, Glos. and Worcester.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

May 1421

Family and Education

bro. of Walter Nelme of Thornbury. m. Agnes, 1da.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Worcester Mich. 1419-20, 1423-4, 1435-6, 1437-9.1

Biography

Robert may well have been the son of a namesake who, in 1388, had been appointed executor of the will of John Fleshewer of Thornbury, and was certainly the brother of Walter Nelme of that place, a dealer in cloth, who in 1410 was buried in St. Andrew’s church, Worcester. The latter, by his will of 16 Feb. that year, bequeathed to Robert his money belt and £3 to cover his expenses in administering his estate. Both brothers held property in Thornbury as well as in Worcester and, under the will, Robert was to have Walter’s portion should his daughter die without issue.2 Robert resided in Worcester for the rest of his life, quite likely earning a living from trade, for in 1413 he was pardoned his outlawry for failing to appear in the court of common pleas to answer a man from Devon on charges of debt. At the time of his first Parliament he was acting as one of the executors of the will of Thomas Belne*, a prominent citizen and j.p. for the county. His second appearance in the Commons followed shortly after his re-election as a bailiff. Nelme was present at the elections for both the county and city of Worcester to the Parliaments of 1421 (Dec.), 1422, 1426 and 1432, on the last two occasions finding mainprise for the appearance of the citizens elected, and in 1433 he performed the same service for John Wood I*, then chosen knight of the shire.3

In 1422 the rector of St. Andrew’s had leased to Nelme, for 40 years, part of a garden alongside Nelme’s own house. In addition to this property he possesed, in right of his wife Agnes, a reversionary interest in two messuages, some land and annual rents of marks from holdings in Lickhill, Kidderminster and Lower Mitton, Worcestershire, to fall in upon the death of Margaret, wife of Walter Corbet*, and it was their title to this estate which in the autumn of 1420 the Nelmes conveyed to feoffees, who included Thomas Heuster and Geoffrey Friar*.4

Nelme was last recorded alive in July 1446.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. T.R. Nash, Worcs. ii. app. 111, 139; Collectanea (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1912), 39, 49.
  • 2. PCC 21 Marche; CAD, i. A868, 888, 906.
  • 3. CPR, 1408-13, p. 445; Collectanea, 31; C219/12/6, 13/1, 4, 14/3, 4.
  • 4. HMC 8th Rep. (pt. 1), 638; CP25(1)260/27/22.
  • 5. Collectanea, 45.