Family and Education

b. by 1503. m. by 1524, Sybil (?Rees), at least 3s. 5da.2

Offices Held

Mayor, Hereford 1531-2, 1537-8, 1544-5, 1554-5, alderman by 1559; commr. gaol delivery 1540.3

Biography

The parentage of Hugh Welshe has not been established but he could have belonged to the Gloucestershire family of that name and have been a kinsman of Anthony Welshe. By trade a mercer (although also called scrivener by a local historian), he was assessed for subsidy in 1546 on goods worth £130. He also acquired considerable landed property in the shire. In or before 1542 he bought the manor of Lyre Ocle from Sir Philip Hoby (who married the widow of Walter Walsh of Abberley, Worcestershire), two years later he added Sutton manor and in 1545 he and his son-in-law Thomas Smith paid £745 for Mansell and other properties; later he acquired moieties of two other manors.4

Welshe is known to have sat in only one Parliament, and that some 20 years after the first of his four mayoralties. During that time the city’s representation appears to have rested with Thomas Havard and Richard Warnecombe and unless Welshe was elected in 1539, when the names are lost, it appears that he had to wait his turn until the beginning of 1553, when Havard, then mayor, probably stood down. Neither his choice on that occasion, nor his failure to secure re-election under Mary, need imply that he did not share Havard’s conservatism in religion: he was to be mayor again in 1554-5 when his son-in-law Hugh Gebons was returned to the Parliament of 1555. In this respect the will which he made on 30 Nov. 1562 is unrevealing. He asked to be buried in Hereford cathedral ‘nigh as convenient may be to the burial of my sons Richard and John’ and left 3s.4d. for the repair of the cathedral and 2s. for forgotten tithes to the vicar of All Hallows, Hereford, besides sums for the poor and sick and for prisoners. He mentioned his three married daughters Elizabeth, Catherine and Anne, and one seemingly unmarried daughter Margery, who was left an annuity of £8. He bequeathed to his wife Sybil his dwelling house in Hereford, another house in the city and some lands. The executors were his son and heir Edward and his sons-in-law Thomas Smith and Robert Saxsey, and the overseers a ‘brother’ Rowland Rees and another son-in-law William Cole. The will was proved on 27 Nov. 1565; the delay in doing so seems to have arisen from a doubt as to its eligibility to be proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury. Welshe died on 10 Jan. 1564, possessed of lands in the shire valued at more than £96 a year. Edward Welshe was then aged 39 years and more, and had a son Hugh for whose education the testator had made provision.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

• 1. Hereford pub. lib., city muniments, bag 2 ex inf. Dr. M. G. Price.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from marriage. PCC 31 Morrison.
• 3. R. J. Johnson, Anct. Customs, Hereford, 233; CPR, 1558-60, p. 173; LP Hen. VIII, xv.
• 4. Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 266; E179/117/162; LP Hen. VIII, xvii, xix, xx; CPR, 1553, p. 117; 1555-7, p. 497; Duncumb, Herefs. i. 126-7.
• 5. HMC 13th Rep. IV, 325; CPR, 1558-60, p. 173; 1563-6, p. 8; PCC 31 Morrison; Wards 7/10/60.