Family and Education

b. by 1516, s. of Thomas Ingler of West Marden, Suss. by Isabel, da. and h. of John Hill alias Hull. educ. M. Temple. m. by 1537, Catherine, da. and coh. of John Cooper of Linkfield, 2s. 7da.2

Offices Held

Commr. relief, Suss. 1550.3

Biography

Thomas Ingler’s ancestors had lived mainly in south-west Sussex for over a century. Little has come to light about Ingler’s father save that his widow married Daniel Mugge, brother-in-law of (Sir) Christopher More and the choice of the borough of Guildford to be one of its Members in the Parliament of 1539. Like his mother, Ingler made an advantageous marriage: by 1537 he had married a coheir who brought him the manor of Linkfield in Reigate and a connexion with her uncles John Skinner I and James Skinner. Ingler and his wife were living in Reigate by 1539, when as a resident of Reigate hundred he was expected to equip men for defence against invasion. He practised as an attorney in the court of common pleas, acting largely on behalf of a Surrey clientele, and he was in the service of at least two religious houses: in November 1538 he obtained an annuity of 13s.4d. from the prior of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, and in 1539-40 he was in receipt of a pension from Syon abbey. In 1547 he paid £40 for a house and other property at Reigate, probably the scattered pieces enumerated in his inquisition and valued there at 53s. a year. In February 1550 he paid William Sackville £140 for the reversion of lands in Horne and Horley formerly of Merton priory.4

The minimal part which Ingler took in local administration implies that he was a man of little personal weight who must have owed his single election to Parliament to influential connexions. Of these he had no lack: besides the Skinner brothers, who inherited a long family tradition of representing Reigate, he could look to Sir Christopher More, whose son William had sat for the borough in 1547 and was to be returned for Guildford as one of Ingler’s colleagues in the House, or to Edmund Michell, whose uncle Thomas had been one of the Reigate Members in 1529. Like his fellow-Member Sir Thomas Saunders, Ingler held his manor of Lord William Howard, who owned Reigate priory and held a moiety of the lordship of the borough itself: if Howard was not too busy at Calais his may have been the decisive influence. The result must have been pleasing to authority, for neither Saunders nor Ingler was among those, including some Surrey Members, who opposed the initial measures towards reunion with Rome.5

Ingler made his will on 25 Jan. 1574. The will is short and the legacies modest, such as 4d. ‘to every of my godchildren that will demand or ask the same’, and 12d. to the vicar of Reigate. The second son William was to have all the furniture and books in the Middle Temple, with two cows, some bedding and ‘a great brass pot, that is to wit the greatest saving one’, and the elder son James, who had been admitted to his father’s inn in 1555, received several head of cattle and some corn and hay. Ingler named his wife sole executrix and gave her the residue of all his goods; by earlier settlements she was to enjoy a life interest in Linkfield manor and the property in Horne. He died on 26 Sept. 1574 and the will was proved 15 months later.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. R. Johnson

Notes

• 1. Bodl. e Museo 17.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Surr. Arch. Colls. xi. (ped. section); Harl. 897, f. 140. The form ‘Jugler’ in which the name appears in several printed sources is a misreading, not a variant.
• 3. CPR, 1553, p. 357.
• 4. Suss. Arch. Colls. x. 137; Suss. Rec. Soc. xix. 69; xxiii. 286-7; lvi. 18; Surr. Rec. Soc. xxiv. 30-36, 38-41, 43-45; LP Hen. VIII, xiv, xv; Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 2; VCH Surr. iii. 238; CP40/1140, r. 473; C142/191/75; E403/2447; CPR, 1549-51, pp. 202-3; M. C. Rosenfield, ‘The disposal of property of London monastic houses’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1961), 256.
• 5. Suss. Rec. Soc. xix. 378; xx. 488; VCH Surr. iii. 233, 235; W. Hooper, Reigate, 115-16.
• 6. Greater London RO, archdeaconry ct. Surr. 1575; C142/191/75.