MARTIN, alias HONYCHURCH, John II (?1525-?92), of Plympton St. Maurice, Devon.

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

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1554

Family and Education

b. ?1525, 3rd s. of John Martin alias Honychurch I* of Plympton St. Maurice and North Tawton by Joan. ?m. Thomasin, da. of Vincent Calmady of Wembury.1

Offices Held

Biography

John Martin had many namesakes in Devon and Dorset, most of whom remain obscure. His election with the Plympton resident John Sparke to Mary’s second Parliament shows him to have been almost certainly the son of an earlier Member for the town and the man of his name who was assessed for subsidy at Plympton St. Maurice in 1546 at 3s.4d. On goods. Martin seldom used the alias Honychurch retained by his eldest brother Humphrey. He seems to have been a merchant, and the meagreness of his legacy, an annuity of 13s., in his father’s will, may reflect earlier provision towards setting him up in business. The return of Richard Calmady for Plympton to the following Parliament suggests that it was this John Martin who married Calmady’s niece and that the same influences were at work to procure their successive elections. If Martin was Thomasin Calmady’s husband, he traded from Plymouth during Elizabeth’s reign and was buried in St. Andrew’s church there on 7 Sept. 1592.2

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from subsidy assessment of 1546 and from elder brother’s. Vis. Devon, ed. Vivian, 128.
  • 2. E179/98/271; C142/74/25, 35; Par. Reg. St. Andrew’s, Plymouth (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. xxiv), 337.