Family and Education

s. and h. of John Cravell (d.1394/5) of Dorchester by his w. Joan. m. by 1396, Alice, 1da.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Dorchester Mich. 1398-9, 1408-9.1

Biography

Although Cravell sat in two successive Parliaments, nothing else is known of him until 1395, after his father’s death. The latter left three properties in Dorchester to his widow, with remainder to Henry as his heir. In 1402, Henry and his wife Alice were still holding a burgage left him by his father. A year later, he acquired from John Jordan, junior, two messuages in South Street, where in 1410 he and his wife also owned a toft. They had tenements, too, in ‘Durnelane’ and ‘Frerenlane’. Cravell was engaged in the local cloth trade, although only on a small scale.2

Having been bailiff twice Cravell was evidently still of some account in the town in 1413 when he was one of the four electors named in the return of the election for the borough to Henry V’s first Parliament. In September 1414 he was a member of the jury of 24 burgesses who, in the town court, passed a new set of bye-laws. However, he only survived until 1417 when his will, dated 5 Feb. that year, was exhibited in the town court. His daughter, Eleanor, was bequeathed two burgages in ‘Durnelane’ which were held of the Crown. His widow apparently continued to hold the bulk of his property in the town although in 1421 she conveyed it to Robert Mose*.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

• 1. Recs. Dorchester ed. Mayo, 130, 174.
• 2. Ibid. 119, 125, 141, 156-7, 163, 171, 186; E101/343/29.
• 3. C219/11/2; Recs. Dorchester, 107, 219, 248.