HARRISON, alias HALL, John (by 1498-1548), of Broadbridges in Sullington, Suss.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1498, 2nd s. of John Hall of Sullington. m. by 1519, Margaret, 3s. 1da.2

Offices Held

Groom of chamber at d.3

Biography

In the election indenture of 29 Sept. 1547 John Harrison and his fellow-Member Robert Cappyn are called ‘commorant and resident’ in Dunwich. Cappyn was a local man but in Harrison’s case the description appears to be a conventional one: there was a leading townsman of the name, a merchant and shipowner, but he lived until 1556 whereas the Member died during the Parliament, being replaced by Thomas Heydon. If the same patronage that secured Heydon his return, that of his uncle Sir William Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby of Parham, is taken to have operated earlier in Harrison’s favour, he may safely be identified with John Harrison alias Hall, a groom of the chamber who was buried at Horsham on 6 Mar, 1548. Although Harrison lived in Sussex he was apparently of Lincolnshire descent and his son and namesake resided at one time in that county; he may therefore have been related to Edmund Hall of Greatford, Lincolnshire, Willoughby’s brother-in-law. Willoughby himself had an estate in Lincolnshire and, setting aside the possibility of kinship, could have come to know Harrison there or at court.4

In a will, made on 17 Apr. 1547 and proved on 17 Oct. 1550, Harrison asked to be buried in Horsham church under the same stone as his cousin Walter Urry or Verye. He provided for his two surviving sons and his married daughter. He named as executor his son John and as supervisors his friends Edward Darknall or Dartnoll and William Stanford, the former probably a relative of Robert Darknall of the royal household and the latter perhaps the Gray’s Inn lawyer who sat for Stafford and Newcastle-under-Lyme.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from marriage. Suss. Rec. Soc. xxi. 2, 294, 299; PCC 23 Coode, 2 Bodfelde; Comber, Suss. Genealogies (Horsham), 154.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, i, xx.
  • 4. Hatfield 207; Norwich consist. ct. 62 Jagges; E111/48; T. Gardner, Dunwich, 82-83; Suss. Rec. Soc. xxi. 299; CPR, 1548-9, p. 228; C142/106/42.
  • 5. PCC 23 Coode; Suss. Rec. Soc. xxi. 2, 294.