Family and Education

s. and h. of John Laney of Cratfield by his 1st w. Catherine, da. of Anthony Yaxley of Mellis. educ. G. Inn 1567, called 1579. m. Mary, da. of John Poley of Badley, sis. of Edmund and ?of Thomas II, 5s. 7da.

Offices Held

J.p. Suff. from c.1583; recorder, Ipswich 1585; Lent reader, G. Inn 1590, receiver of admittance money 1596.

Biography

Laney was an Ipswich lawyer. On 23 Jan. 1585 he was appointed recorder at £13 6s.4d. p.a.

provided he shall continue his dwelling, and aid the town in all causes, in London and elsewhere, and the bailiffs in judicature, and shall not be of counsel with any private man’s cause in the courts of the town, and shall take the freeman’s oath.

The next year he was chosen as burgess to Parliament when the town heard that their first choice, (Sir) John Heigham, had been elected for the shire.

The Privy Council occasionally made use of Laney’s services. In 1589 he was directed to settle a dispute between Southwold and Dunwich. In December 1595 the Dunwich minute book records £7 10s. paid to him. In 1603 he was fined £10 for refusing to be double Lent reader at Gray’s Inn. He died 4 Oct. 1633, and was buried in St. Margaret’s, Ipswich. One of his younger sons, Benjamin, was bishop successively of Peterborough, Lincoln and Ely.

Vis. Suff. ed. Metcalfe, 50, 149; N. Bacon, Ipswich Annals, 341, 347; G. Inn Pens. Bk. i. 38, 89, 107; Reg. St. Nicholas, Ipswich, 40-1; APC, xviii. 361; xx. 219; DNB (Laney, Benjamin).

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.J.C.

Notes