Family and Education

b. by 1486. m. Mary, 1ch.2

Offices Held

Bailiff, Great Grimsby in 1507, member of mayor’s council by 1510-d., coroner in 1512, chamberlain in 1513.3

Biography

Robert Vicars was doubtless related to William Vicars, who was mayor of Grimsby five times between 1490 and 1503 and who issued several orders for reforming the governance of the borough; but if this William Vicars is to be identified with the William Wikers of Grimsby who died in 1506 there is no mention of a Robert in his will. Nothing is known of Robert Vicars’s career beyond his municipal record and his description in his will as a merchant. His election to the Parliament of 1512 with George Barnardiston may have been a gesture by the town against the interference which had reversed its previous one, when Vicars had been one of the electors whose choice was superseded. If so, the fact that both he and Barnardiston were to be replaced three years later, despite the King’s request for the re-election of the previous Members, could have been similarly prompted, for Barnardiston’s replacement, William Hatcliffe, looks like a court nominee, and the corporation may well have decided that if one of its seats could thus be filled in breach of the general recommendation the other should also. Whether finance entered into the matter is not clear, for it is not known whether Vicars had served for more or less than the 12d. a day accepted by his replacement, the mayor Philip Hamby. Vicars’s business took him periodically to London, and it was while there that he fell ill and made his will on 13 Aug. 1517. After asking to be buried in the church of St. Dunstan in the East if he died in London, he named his wife sole legatee and executrix and asked his ‘brother, the parson of Bramston [?Branston, Lincolnshire]’ to help her to execute the will, which was proved on the following 16 Dec.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. M. Hofmann

Notes

• 1. Great Grimsby AO, oldest ct. bk. f. 223.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. PCC 1 Ayloffe.
• 3. Great Grimsby AO, oldest ct. bk. ff. 61, 93v, 145v, 146, 159v, 163v, 221v.
• 4. PCC 17 Adeane, 1 Ayloffe; HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 241-2, 258, 268, 273, 289; Great Grimsby AO, f. 224.