Family and Education

m. bef. 1364, Margery, 1da.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Derby Mar. 1377, May 1379.

Commr. of arrest, Derby June 1380.

Bailiff, Derby Mich. 1389-90; alderman 1390-1.1

Biography

At a coroner’s inquest held at Derby in August 1364 to view the body of William Palmer of Breadsall, the jury related how William Pakeman and William Sele had met at a local tavern to patch up a difference of opinion, but that the former’s servant had promptly picked a quarrel with Palmer, Sele’s servant, and stabbed him to death. Pakeman, later to become a wealthy wool merchant, already owned property in Derby, and his business interests soon extended to London. In 1369 he took out a royal pardon of his outlawry in the hustling court there for failing to appear to honour debts amounting to £50 owed to Thomas Pykenham, with whom he had commercial dealings. In March 1372 he secured a royal licence to ship 30 sacks of wool from Boston directly to the Netherlands, and avoiding the Staple at Calais, provided that he paid the subsidies exacted from aliens. The only Derby man referred to as ‘generosus’, Pakeman was assessed for the poll tax of 1379 at the comparatively high rate of 12d. Eight years later William Groos* considered that marriage with Pakeman’s daughter, Joyce, would be a profitable proposition for his ward, John Cotton of Kingsley, Staffordshire.2

Pakeman was called upon to witness deeds at Mercaston in 1385 and 1390, and, after representing the borough five times in Parliament, he was elected bailiff of Derby in 1389 and alderman the subsequent year. At Michaelmas 1391, when he and his fellow aldermen, who included Groos, were supposed to relinquish office, they and their followers allegedly disrupted the electoral proceedings and prevented the new bailiffs from collecting the fee farm owed to Queen Anne. Consequently, on 28 Oct., he was constrained to enter into recognizances with the queen for £200.3

Some indication of Pakeman’s standing in the area is suggested by his long friendship with members of the gentry family of Tuchet, with whom he was associated in 1392 in a grant in mortmain to St. Mary’s priory. The following April, along with John Tuchet of Markeaton (whose son later became Lord Audley), he was enfeoffed of the estates in Somerset, Shropshire, South Wales and Chester belonging to Tuchet’s aunt, Margaret, wife of Sir Roger Hillary and sister and coheiress of Nicholas, Lord Audley, thereby providing for the reversion of these to his friends. In connexion with this transaction Pakeman stood bound in obligations for 500 marks.4 He is last heard of in June 1393, and died before 1411.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. JUST 2/27 m. 2, 30 m. 5; CCR, 1389-92, p. 116; SC8/42/2075.
• 2. CP25(1)39/37/178; CPR, 1367-70, p. 279; CFR, viii. 164; E179/91/28A; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xv. 89.
• 3. Derby Bor. Lib. Every mss 3238, 3426; SC8/42/4075; CCR, 1389-92, p. 480.
• 4. J.P. Yeatman, Feudal Hist. Derbys. vi (pt. 10), 225; Derbys. Chs. ed. Jeayes, 986; CPR, 1391-6, pp. 136-7, 272; CCR, 1392-6, p. 137; DKR, xxvi (pt. 2), 234, 373.
• 5. CCR, 1409-13, p. 161.