Family and Education

b. by 1519, 1st s. of Richard Cholmley of Bletchingley by 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of one Michell. m. by 1540, Elizabeth, da. of Robert Slade, 1s. 1da., other ch. suc. fa. 1557/58.1

Offices Held

Biography

The Cholmleys of Bletchingley were descendants of the ancient Cheshire family, so that Humphrey Cholmley was distantly related to two more eminent Members of the Parliament of November 1554, Ralph and Sir Roger Cholmley. It was his grandfather who moved from Staffordshire to settle at Bletchingley, where by 1522 the family ranked second to the Sackvilles as manorial tenants. When the 3rd Duke of Buckingham held the manor, Cholmley’s father was bedel and bailiff there, and Buckingham rebuilt his house: it was called Kentwaynes or the Tan House, and Richard Cholmley and a partner employed five men in a tannery. In 1545 Humphrey Cholmley was party to a fine raised on property in Fetcham and Leatherhead: the transaction was probably part of a sale, for 100 marks changed hands, and it was as a parishioner that in 1549 he helped to take an inventory of the goods of Fetcham church.2

The patronage of Bletchingley was exercised by (Sir) Thomas Cawarden and most of the men returned there during the reign of Mary were nonresidents who can be linked with him. That Cholmley was by contrast a local man who had no known connexion with Cawarden save in that respect may imply that his election to the third Marian Parliament was a response to the government’s directive favouring resident Members. He was not among those who quitted the Parliament without leave before its dissolution.

When Cholmley’s father made his will in 1557 he directed Cholmley to pay a debt of £40 to his stepmother Denise or her executors. Cholmley made his own will on 1 Mar. 1558 when ‘sick of body’. It was not that of a wealthy man. His wife being dead, his eldest son and daughter were to have the family bedding and their parents’ apparel and to share the rest of their father’s goods, but the daughter was to have the fine linen and the custody of the other children. The executors were Cholmley’s half-brother Robert and his son John: they were to take the profits of the lands in Bletchingley until John Cholmley was 30, discharging debts and giving Beatrice Cholmley £20 on her marriage, and were given 40s. each for their pains, while the overseer, Henry Michell of Rusper, was to receive 20s. Probate was granted on 20 Feb. 1560.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. R. Johnson

Notes

• 1. Date of birth from marriage. Burke, Peerage, 538; PCC 54 Welles, 17 Mellershe; U. Lambert, Bletchingley, ii. 501 seq.
• 2. Vis. Cheshire (Harl. Soc. xviii), 63; Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 127; Surr. Arch. Colls. v. 222, 242, 263; xxi. 53; SP1/29, f. 179; Surr. Fines (Surr. Rec. Soc. xix), 61, 74.
• 3. PCC 54 Welles, 17 Mellershe.