Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Leominster 1574.

Biography

Shoter may have belonged to the family which owned the manor of Mere Place, King’s Pyon, Herefordshire. William Shoter, possibly Thomas’s father, was convicted of murder early in Elizabeth’s reign and his property confiscated by the Crown. Shoter himself must have been living in Leominster by 1568 when his name occurs in a case before the local court leet. He and another man complained that when they fetched water from near the door of Richard Powell, who had been Catholic vicar of Leominster in Mary’s reign, they were cursed by Powell’s wife, ‘being a rude person of her tongue, and a disquieter of all her neighbours (as it is well known)’.

Shoter and Humphrey Wall, the two local men returned by Leominster to the 1589 Parliament, were granted leave of absence from the House ‘for their special and necessary business’ 24 Mar. 1589. The date of Shoter’s death has not been ascertained.

CPR, 1558-60, p. 133; 1563-6, p. 12; W. R. Williams, Parl. Hist. Herefs. 123; Robinson, Herefs. Manors, 160; G. F. Townsend, Leominster, 258; D’Ewes, 452; LR2/217, f. 108.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: M.R.P.

Notes