Family and Education

2nd s. of John Vachell^† of Coley.1 m. 1s.

Offices Held

Biography

Nicholas was the grandson of John Vachell of Reading, a wool merchant frequently mentioned in local records at the close of the 13th century, and younger son of another John, possibly a lawyer, who bought land at Coley on the outskirts of Reading, and sat for Berkshire in the Parliaments of 1324 and 1330. Nicholas’s elder brother, Sir John, who owned premises at Coley, Tilehurst and Reading, left no surviving heir, so that Nicholas became head of the family after his death. Before then he had evidently traded in Reading as an ironmonger (as such paying 1s. poll tax in 1379). Whether he inherited his brother’s property before his return to the Cambridge Parliament is uncertain. Little else is known about Vachell, who was succeeded in the Coley lands by his son and heir, William.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

• 1. Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 56.
• 2. VCH Berks. iii. 364; Berks. Arch. Jnl. iii. 4-6; E179/73/42.