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DRURY, Roger (d.1599), of Rollesby and Great Yarmouth, Norf.
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Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
2nd s. of William Drury of Besthorpe by his 2nd w. Dorothy, da. of William Brampton of Letton. educ. Trinity Coll. Camb. 1560, scholar 1560, BA 1565. m. Catherine, da. of John Laville, wid. of William Lyster, 2s.
Offices Held
Freeman, Yarmouth 1582, bailiff 1583-4, 1593-4, alderman by 1588.
Biography
A man ‘of some family and fortune’, Drury became a citizen of Yarmouth and a prominent member of the corporation. He dealt ‘in town causes’ at London, kept the accounts and money for a warship provided by the town, advised on the cutting of a new haven and took part in a dispute with the Cinque Ports. He wrote to the Earl of Leicester in 1585, desiring repayment of £347 expended on the charges of 400 soldiers of Norfolk and Suffolk embarked for Holland, and to Sir Robert Cecil in 1594, informing him of the arrest of a suspected papist at Yarmouth. He owned seven messuages there, one called the Dolphin, a tavern called the Turk’s Head and the estate of the Blackfriars. Among his country estates were Eccles, Norfolk, and Bradwell, Mutford and Rushmere, Suffolk. Although his name does not appear in the parliamentary records, as burgess for Yarmouth he was eligible to attend a committee concerning Hartlepool pier on 28 Feb. 1589.
By his will, made 22 May 1599 and proved 30 Oct., he bequeathed the greater part of his landed property to his wife Catherine, and, after her decease, to his second son Roger. He desired burial in Rollesby church and left 300 marks to each son, hoping they would go first to Cambridge, then to an inn of court or chancery. His sister Katherine, wife of John Chamberlain, ‘her bad husband’, received £6, £2 went towards the repair of Yarmouth church, £10 towards the new haven and sums to the poor of four Norfolk parishes. His relative Sir Dru Drury was appointed overseer and given a silver basin and ewer; ‘my friend Henry Manship’, town clerk of Yarmouth and witness to the will, received a ring.
A. Campling, Hist. Drury Fam. 88-9; Norf. Arch. iii. 28, 385; xiv. 78; Cal. Yarmouth Freemen 1420-1800, p. 42; C. J. Palmer, Yarmouth, 201, 303; Yarmouth ass. bk. 1579-98, ff. 139, 148; H. Manship, Yarmouth, 88; D’Ewes, 440; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 264; HMC Hatfield, iv. 532; PCC 79 Kidd; C142/256/37.
