Family and Education

b. by 1501. m. Marion, 1s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Common clerk and clerk of peace, Ipswich 1541-7, bailiff 1547-8, 1553-4, 1558-9, j.p. 1547-9, 1553-5, 1557-65, 1566-7; commr. sewers 1566.2

Biography

Little is known about the career of Richard Bryde. His office of clerk of the peace suggests that he was trained in the law, but his name does not appear in the registers of any of the inns or of a university. Whatever his profession, he prospered in it, for at his death he owned lands in Levington, Nacton and Stoke-next-Ipswich as well as property in the town itself. He had close connexions with local merchants, being linked by marriage with Ralph Goodwin and by friendship with Henry Tooley. In 1522 he was one of the four auditors appointed by Tooley to draw up an account of the transactions of Tooley’s factor, who was accused of fraud. When Tooley died in 1550, Bryde was appointed an executor of his will with William and Robert Daundy and John Southwell; in November 1556 they were given licence to build an almshouse for the poor in Ipswich, Tooley having left lands for this purpose. In 1568 Bryde’s subsidy assessment was on £10 in lands, a relatively high amount for Ipswich at the time. He and his fellow-Member John Smith alias Dyer were returned to the Parliament of March 1553 despite a letter from Edward Grimston^†, almost certainly on behalf of the government, asking the borough to return William Honing.3

By his will, dated 20 Oct. 1568 and proved on the following 29 Nov., Bryde left all his lands to his wife and executrix, with the exception of some in Levington and Nacton which went to his grandson, Ralph Goodwin. Property in Ipswich and Stoke was to be sold and £210 of the proceeds were to go to Bryde’s wife in lieu of a house of hers which he had sold; the rest was to be divided between five of his grandchildren. Bryde’s son Augustine was to receive lands and tenements in Levington and Nacton on the death of his mother. Other bequests included £10 to be distributed among the poor and an annuity of £4 to another grandson, Christopher Goodwin.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: John Pound

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. PCC 23 Babington.
• 2. N. Bacon, Annals Ipswich, 217-74 passim; CPR, 1569-72, p. 218.
• 3. J. G. Webb, Great Tooley of Ipswich , 30, 151-2; Suff. Green Bks. xii. 157; Ipswich central lib. letters, accession 2672, no. 4.
• 4. PCC 23 Babington.