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WARREN, Thomas (d.1591), of Dover and Ripple, Kent.
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Biography Detail
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Family and Education
2nd but o. surv. s. of John Warren† of Dover by Jane, da. of John Monninges of Swanton. m. Christian Close of Calais, at least 1s. suc. fa. 1547.
Offices Held
Common councilman and chamberlain, Dover 1547-8, jurat for every year for which records survive from Sept. 1551 to 1577, mayor 1548-9, 1549-50, ?1550-Jan. 1551, 1557-8, 1574-5; brodhull rep. several times bef. 1572; bailiff to Yarmouth 1553-4.
Biography
Warren’s father and grandfather had represented Dover in 11 of the 15 Parliaments held under Henry VII and Henry VIII. His name first appears in the Dover records in 1537. On his father’s death he succeeded to his position in the port. His occupation has not been discovered, though the fact that his wife came from Calais suggests that he may have been connected with cross-channel trade. The struggle for power in the town council and the bitter disputes which this engendered did not end with Elizabeth’s accession, and Warren suffered a temporary loss of face in 1559 when he was fined £4 for disobeying the mayor. In March 1562 he made peace with a merchant, John Hughson, after a long-standing quarrel between them. In the same year he was appointed one of the arbitrators in the dispute over the will of Alice, widow of Thomas Portway†.
Warren represented Dover in three Elizabethan Parliaments. In 1559 he was paid at least £12 for his services and in 1563 he and John Robins appear to have been paid about the same amount, though in his will Warren complained that he had not received all of his parliamentary wages. As one of the Dover burgesses in 1576 Warren could have sat on the ports bill committee, 13 Feb. He also represented Dover at numerous meetings of the brodhull of the Cinque Ports.
From his father Warren inherited property in Dover, and on his mother’s death in 1572 he secured the family mansions there and at Ripple. He probably retired to Ripple in the late 1570s, before the 1581 session of Parliament: the last reference to him in the town books of Dover is on 21 Sept. 1577. In his will, which was made on 11 Apr. and proved on 16 June 1591, he calls himself ‘Thomas Warren of Ripple, gent.’ The principal beneficiary was his son John, who was left the main house and lands in Ripple, Sutton, Mongeham, Dover, Hougham, Alkham and Charlton, all in Kent. His wife was to receive an annuity of £30 from these estates and half the household goods. If she was dissatisfied with this arrangement she was to have nothing. John was to be executor, and the overseers were the widow and ‘Mr. Crayforde of Mongeham’.
Vis Kent. (Harl. Soc. lxxv), 45; Chron. of Calais, ed. Nichols (Cam. Soc. xxxv), 39; Dover accts. 1547-58, 1558-81; hundred court bk. 1545-88, ff. 88, 116; Cinque Ports white bk. ff. 223, 241, 249; black bk. ff. 13, 16; Egerton 2092, f. 420; 2094 passim; 2095, f. 4; J. B. Jones, Dover Annals, 244; D’Ewes, 247; Cant. Prob. Reg. C.21, ff. 57-8; A.48, f. 243; Consistory ct. bk. 32/10.
