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CLEWER, Richard, of Bath, Som.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Family and Education
Offices Held
Churchwarden, St. Michael’s, Bath Oct. 1365-7.1
Tax collector, Bath Nov. 1382.
Biography
Most of Clewer’s traceable activities were concerned with the parish of St. Michael outside the north gate of the city of Bath. He held a tenement of the churchwardens at an annual rent of 4s.4d., which he paid for at least nine years from 1369. In 1378 he was also in possession of a house in Broad Street for which he paid a penny to the wardens. Besides these properties Clewer had a garden in ‘Paynestwychne’ nearby. In March 1378 he served on a jury at Bath providing proof of age for Thomas Berlegh, grandson and heir of Sir James Hussey, who six years later leased to him a messuage with a courtyard and garden, and two meadows, a close and six acres of arable land in Bathampton, to hold for life for an annual rent of two geese and regular suit at Berlegh’s court.2
In November 1391 Robert Newlyn* and others broke into Clewer’s house and stole four yards of cloth valued at 16s., £10 in cash, a silver girdle worth 80s., seven silver buttons worth 6s., a silver Agnus Dei worth 20s., a clasp worth 20d., fabric worth 2s. and a kerchief worth 10s. The items of cloth perhaps point to Clewer’s occupation as that of a cloth manufacturer or trader, and it may have been he who as Richard Clewe (sic) had exported six lengths of cloth from Bristol to Ireland some ten months previously. In September 1392 he and others conveyed to a Bristol burgess the property in Bath which they had received from John Compe. Clewer is last recorded, as a witness to a local deed, in September 1393.3
Ref Volumes: 1386-1421
Notes
Variants: Cluer, Clyware.