MORE, William I (by 1508-48/49), of Sherfield-upon-Loddon, Hants and London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1508, 2nd s. of Thomas More of Sherfield-upon-Loddon by Margaret, da. of John Cottesmore of Oxon. educ. M. Temple. m. by 1540, Catherine, wid. of John Colet, 1s. 6da.1

Offices Held

Escheator, Hants and Wilts. 1538-9.

Biography

William More received a legal education at the inn where his father had twice been Lent reader, and evidently practised his calling as he kept chambers there until his death. It was probably as an aspiring lawyer that he was returned for Shaftesbury to the Parliament of 1529. His patron on this occasion and in 1545, as also perhaps for one or more of the three intervening Parliaments for which the borough’s returns are lost, was doubtless Thomas Arundell, the receiver-general for Shaftesbury abbey and later lord of the town; More was to die holding a lease of lands in Tisbury, a Wiltshire village near the Dorset border, where the chief resident during the 1540s was Arundell and where More’s widow and son continued to live. When More made his will he described himself as of Sherfield, but as a younger son he never owned the family seat; his elder brother had pre-deceased him in 1546 leaving as heir a 14 year-old boy, and it must have been as his nephew’s guardian that More lived at Sherfield in his last years. He died not long after making his will on 10 Dec. 1548 since it was proved on the following 4 July: its executors were all relatives, but as overseers he appointed three of his friends, William Paulet, Baron St. John, Thomas White II and John Pollard.2

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Helen Miller

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Harl. 1139, f. 11; PCC 34 Populwell.
  • 2. M.T. Recs. i. 4-42 passim; Req.2/13/79, 35/46; C142/75/76; PCC 29 Pynnyng, 34 Populwell.