Family and Education

m. Alice (née Rede) of Dorchester.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Dorset Dec. 1380, Nov. 1382, Nov. 1383, May 1384, Mar. 1401.

Bailiff, Dorchester Mich. 1394-5.2

Biography

Besides representing Dorchester in three Parliaments and serving the borough as its bailiff, Gutton was also fairly active in the county as a collector of taxes. In 1396, along with John Blount I*, he was one of the trustees for the guild of St. Mary in St. Peter’s church, Dorchester. It was in this capacity that he was seised of 18 messuages and a rent of 20s., properties held in burgage which were declared forfeit, only for the forfeiture to be remitted, in July 1396, when the trustees were licensed to grant them to Margaret, widow of Sir Nicholas Sarnesfield, in aid of the foundation of a ‘perpetual fraternity’.3 Gutton also owned property in Dorchester in his own right. This included a tenement in South Street and two more in ‘Puselane’, one of which, by 1404, he had conveyed to Peter Blount*. The other, a burgage known as ‘Helle’, he bequeathed to his wife, Alice. He died before April 1410, by which date Alice had married John Jordan*.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

• 1. W. Prynne, Brevia Parliamentaria Rediviva, iv. 967.
• 2. Recs. Dorchester, 116-17.
• 3. CPR, 1396-9, p. 9.
• 4. Recs. Dorchester, 143, 164, 195, 199.