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CHAPELL, John (by 1533-58 or later), of Bridgwater, Som.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. by 1533.2
Offices Held
Member of town council, Bridgwater by 1558.3
Biography
Very little trace of John Chapell of Bridgwater has been found. In 1556 he received £3 3s. ‘for his half fees when he was burgess of the Parliament’, and in 1558 as a member of the town’s council he contributed 5s. and arms towards a force to recapture Calais and paid 32s. rent for two houses in the town. There are references to several namesakes who apparently came from a north Devon family (one of these, a Taunton merchant who died in 1561, had business connexions with Bridgwater), and presumably Chapell was related to them. Alternatively he may have been a distant kinsman of two local magnates, Sir Henry Capell and William Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, since a client of the Capel family, Edmund Lyte, found a seat for Bridgwater in the following Parliament and Winchester often accepted gifts from the corporation.4