Family and Education

b. by 1479.3

Offices Held

Mayor, New Windsor 1512, 1524-5; commr. subsidy 1515.4

Biography

The first mention of Thomas Rider shows that in 1500 he paid a rent of 4s. to the guild of the Holy Trinity, Windsor, presumably for some property in the borough. He was almost certainly a townsman, since the chamberlains’ accounts between 1515 and 1522 contain several payments to him for the annual ‘upping of swans’, when the swan mark of the corporation was placed on their bills. A Thomas Rider was among the surveyors of the hall in the King’s household between 1509 and 1524, but there is nothing but the name to connect him with the Member for Windsor.5

Rider appears only once in the chamberlains’ book as mayor, when he heard the accounts at the guildhall in October 1524. He is known, however, to have held the office in 1512, for Ashmole’s extracts from the corporation records include a note that he was mayor in the fourth year of Henry VIII. Ashmole also noted payments to Rider as a Member of the Parliament of 1512, although he seems to have copied these from the chamberlains’ accounts, which still exist and which sometimes yield different sums. The dates and amounts are the same as those recorded for Rider’s fellow-Member John Welles, save that between April 1515 and April 1516 a sum of 13s.4d. was delivered to Rider alone ‘in full payment of 40s.’; he also received 6s.8d. ‘for the commission of the subsidy of the town of Windsor’. It is difficult to relate these payments to any particular parliamentary session. Rider may have sat again in 1523 when the names of the Windsor Members are unknown. In 1524 he was assessed for subsidy on goods worth £50, which makes him one of the half-dozen wealthiest townsmen, and his last appearance in the chamberlains’ accounts is in the following October, when he received a fee of 20s. for his recent term of office. A year later William Symonds was paid for keeping the swans, so it seems that Rider died at about this time, and his name with him.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

• 1. R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, Windsor Annals, i. 465; Windsor recs. Wi/FA c.1, f. 6v.
• 2. Tighe and Davis, i. 473-4; Windsor recs. Wi/FA c.1, ff. 7v, i, 9v.
• 3. Date of birth estimated from first reference.
• 4. Windsor recs. Wi/FA c.i, f. 7, 20v; LP Hen. VIII, i; Tighe and Davis, i. 515.
• 5. Bodl. Ashmole 1126, f. 16v; VCH Berks. iii. 60; Windsor recs. Wi/GA c.i, ff. 8-17; LP Hen. VIII, i, iv.
• 6. Windsor recs. Wi/FA c.1, ff. 6v, 7v, 8, 9v, 20v, 23, 25; Tighe and Davis, i. 515; LP Hen. VIII, i; Bodl. Ashmole 1126, f. 23; E179/73/130, 137.