Family and Education

b. c.1550. m. Eleanor, 2s. 4da.

Offices Held

Freeman, Poole 1585, mayor 1589-90, collector of revenues 1600-2.

Biography

The son of a Poole merchant, Man was himself granted the freedom of the borough in 1585, when he obtained dispensation from performing any office in the town for six years, and freedom after that from becoming water-bailiff or constable. Made mayor nevertheless in 1589, he began to keep a book of the staple in which were entered copies of all the documents to which the town seal was affixed. When he visited London in 1589 he was given a list of instructions, signed by Robert Gregory and other townsmen, and addressed ‘to our trusty and well beloved mayor,’ and £30 to spend (more could be spent by the advice of the recorder) ‘praying [him] to be a good husband for the corporation’. He was asked ‘to return as soon as conveniently’ he could. It is not clear whether this journey was combined with that required for his attendance at the Parliament, or whether he made two visits to London in that year. Early in 1592 the corporation again sent him to London, once more with a ‘remembrance’. He twice represented his borough in Parliament during the Elizabethan period.

Man died 22 Dec. 1622. Apart from his property in Poole, he owned houses at Weymouth and some lands at Frome Bellot. In his will, dated 15 Sept. 1622, he left bequests to his servants, to the church and poor of Poole, and to Nicholas Jeffreys, ‘preacher of God’s word’ there, for a funeral sermon. He left his ‘well-beloved wife’ Eleanor the residue and appointed her executrix, with his ‘cousins’ Richard Swayne and Anthony Weekes overseers. The will mentions no children. Man asked to be buried at Poole, where his widow set up a memorial bearing the inscription:

This merchant Man purchased a jewel rare,

When to gain Christ (God man) he took great care.1

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: P. W. Hasler

Notes

This biography is based upon the Roberts thesis.

• 1. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 47, 31; Poole recs., bk. of the staple, audit bk.; Som. and Dorset N. and Q. vi. 171, 315; Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. Procs. liii, 82-3; PCC 7 Swann.