One of last year's talks at the Wills Study day was by Peter Charnley and Carol Dougherty whose findings have been summarised by Heather Falvey
The wills of Richard Welbeke (1488) & Jane Welbeke
(1489)
Having the wills of a man and his widow allows historians to
link items in those wills and so have a better contextual understanding. We can follow the story onwards, as it were.
The second will might clarify ambiguities in the first but it might also omit
beneficiaries who were well catered for in the earlier one. The wills of Richard and Jane Welbeke provide
good examples of these features.
Local historian Dorian Gerhold has identified the exact
location for the Welbeke’s home in Putney.
Their very sizeable property can be identified in a written survey of 1497 which details the
five ‘chief places’ of Putney and also suggests that the entire population of
Putney in that year was almost 300. (See
Dorian Gerhold, Thomas Cromwell and his
family in Putney and Wandsworth, published by Wandsworth Historical
Society.)
Richard Welbeke left his ‘Right of the Fery of Putnehith’
(Putney) to William Welbeke (probably his uncle) as payment for his labour in
his role as executor of Richard’s will. This referred to the right to profits from the
ferry at Putney. It indicates that Richard would have received an income from
those working the ferry but would not have been a ferryman himself. At this
time the Thames was only passable by ferry or boat at this location (present
Putney Bridge). It was a well-known and
convenient crossing so there was plenty of business to be had ferrying people
across the river.
There were four shares in the ferry – two belonging to the
manor of Wimbledon (which included Putney) and two to the manor of Fulham.
There is no firm evidence regarding Richard Welbeke’s status
or occupation but he evidently received an income from his right of ferry and
from the rents for his houses and tenements in London, Essex and
Derbyshire. The two wills each detail
quite a spread of named properties and lands in and around Colchester,
including a messuage (house and surrounding buildings) in ‘Est Strete’,
Colchester and a messuage in Grenested (Greenstead) called Parsons, held (rented
from) Walter, Abbot of St John’s, Colchester.
We have an idea about what Est Strete in Colchester was like at this
time. It was ‘one of the poorest in the town after Bere
Lane, and was home to several unlicensed brothels’. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Colchester,
accessed 06/09/19) Richard also left to his son John ‘all my [unspecified] lands and tenements in
Derbyshire …’. As he had left
money to the brotherhood (or fraternity) of Our Lady of Ashbourne, it seemed
likely that Ashbourne was the locus of the Derbyshire
landholding. And so it proved to be: the
Derbyshire Archives have a wealth of documentary evidence linking the Welbeke
family to considerable landholding and property ownership within Ashbourne and
surrounding villages, particularly Compton and Clifton.
Both Richard and Jane refer to a William Welbeke – possibly
Richard’s uncle. A bit more investigation into this person reveals that he was
a Merchant of the Staple. He is mentioned in the Close Rolls of Henry VII
(1489) as ‘haberdassher and merchant of London and the Staple’, indicating that
he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers and a freeman.
Exports of wool were restricted to freemen of the company and they were granted
a monopoly over the export in return for collecting duties and paying these to
the Exchequer – of course creating an income for themselves in the
process. Perhaps the Derbyshire
properties referred to in Richard’s will were associated with the lucrative
wool trade and the familial links between him and William ensured that the
income was kept in the family.
On the north wall of the parish church in Putney was a brass
memorial dedicated to Richard’s parents, John (died 1476) and Agnes (died
1478), but the inset brass figures were stolen in the 1970s. Richard’s own
monumental brass bears the inscription ‘of the Middle Temple’ but his name does
not appear in the admissions register as a member – leaving us with another
conundrum about this interesting individual!
As already mentioned, Richard Welbeke bequeathed all his
Derbyshire lands and tenements to his son John.
A year later, in Jane Welbeke’s will, she mentioned her son Richard and
three daughters, all of whom were below the ages of majority, but there is no
mention of John. This is probably
because he had already had a sizeable bequest from his father, so Jane considered
that what was left of her estate should reasonably be divided between her other
four children. If only her will had
survived, and not her husband’s as well, John’s existence would be unknown.