Family and Education

b. by 1480, 3rd s. of Robert Stanford of Rowley by Margery, da. of one Fisher of Rowley. m. by 1501, da. of William Henshaw of Gloucester, 1s. 3da.; 1s. illegit.2

Offices Held

Biography

Little has come to light about Thomas Stanford. Although he lived in the neighbourhood, he was apparently not a freeman of Stafford. His election could have owed something to the constable of Stafford castle, Edward Littleton, who in 1529 was returned as a knight of the shire. Stanford’s marriage into the family of a bell-founder and mayor of Gloucester suggests that his career may have begun in the service of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (d.1521), whose principal residence had been in Gloucestershire; his mother’s forbears had served the Stafford family and owed to it their property in Rowley. After Stanford’s death the capital messuage there was to be the subject of a dispute between his heir and Buckingham’s heir Baron Stafford, who claimed that the property had been restored to him with the barony in 1531.3

Stanford died on 13 Jan. 1532, two days before the opening of the third session of the Parliament, and was buried in the church at Castle Church. At the inquisition held at Stafford on the following 5 Feb. it was found that he had some property in the locality and that his son and heir William (not to be confused with a namesake, Stanford’s nephew, who was to be returned for Stafford to the last two Henrician Parliaments) was aged 31 years and more. Thomas Stanford’s death was noted a month or two later when the list of Members of the Parliament was revised, and at the by-election which followed he was replaced by Sampson Erdeswick.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: L. M. Kirk / A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from marriage. Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. iii(2), 133, 136.
• 3. Ibid. iii(2), 133; (1912), 24; VCH Staffs. v. 80; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. xxvi. 45.
• 4. Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. iii(2), 133; viii(2), 89; SP1/56/9; C142/53/32; E150/1038/5.