Family and Education

b. by 1515, s. of one Pounte by Mary. m. 28 Jan. 1542, Clement Woodland.2

Offices Held

Servant of Sir Richard Rich c.1537; messenger, ct. augmentations by 1539; clerk of the compter in Bread Street, London by 1544.3

Biography

In the late 1520s Jasper Pounte was living with his mother within the precincts of the priory of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, London. The prioress, from whom Pounte’s stepfather Thomas Parker, a London ironmonger, rented the house, complained bitterly of the behaviour of the whole family— of Pounte for abusing the porter. Pounte, when he had his own establishment, lived in a new house in the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury. Although he lived and worked in London, Pounte also had interests in Dorset. In the 1530s he laid claim unsuccessfully to the manor of Axnoll in Beaminster, bought by his mother, of which he and other feoffees had been dispossessed, and in the early 1550s he bought the farm of Wotton in Dorset.4

No link between Pounte and Lyme Regis has been discovered and he appears to have owed his elections there to his former connexions in augmentations; one of these, Matthew Colthurst, was a figure of some influence in the south-west and an associate of the 1st Earl of Pembroke. Pounte was chosen for Lyme Regis in 1555 at the same time as a superior, John Foster III, was returned for Shaftesbury, not far from Colthurst’s residence. Three years later Lyme elected Foster and John Popham to Parliament, but Foster, who had also been returned for Hertfordshire, preferred the knighthood of that shire: a writ was therefore issued on 24 Jan. for a fresh election at which, three days later, Pounte replaced him. Pounte’s name does not appear on the original Crown Office list for the Parliament of 1558 but is on the copy made during its course.5

In 1561 Pounte tried to obtain possession of a house and mills in Somerset and was hindered (as he thought) by the partiality of the under sheriff, Richard Fitzjames. No further reference to him has been found.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: L. M. Kirk / M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament; Wm. Salt Lib. SMS. 264.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from mother’s second widowhood in 1517, St.Ch.2/17/217. C1/876/55; Reg. St. Mary Aldermanbury (Harl. Soc. xli), i. 5.
• 3. Information from Mary E. Coyle; LP Hen. VIII, xiv; City of London RO, Guildhall, rep. 12(1), f. 127v; London Consist. Ct. Wills (London Rec. Soc. iii), 128.
• 4. St.Ch.2/17/217, 24/228, 25/185; CPR, 1549-51, p. 410; C1/876/55, 1355/12-14, 1370/84-85; 78/9/70.
• 5. C193/30/2; 219/25/32, 39-40; Wm. Salt Lib. SMS. 264.
• 6. St.Ch.2/34/25, 3/9/90.