Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bankwell, John de

791705Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 03 — Bankwell, John de1885James McMullen Rigg

BANKWELL, BAKWELL, BACQWELL, or BANQUELLE, JOHN de (d. 1308), judge, was appointed in 1297 to travel the forests in Essex, Huntingdon, Northampton, Rutland, Surrey, and Sussex, for the purpose of enforcing the observance of the forest laws of Henry m, and in 1299 was made a justice itinerant for Kent, and a baron of the exchequer in 1307. We find him summoned to attend the king's coronation, and parliament in 1308. In this year he died, and his widow, Cicely, was relieved from the payment of four marks, at which her property had been assessed for taxation, by favour of the king. He had landed property at Lee and elsewhere in Kent, which descended, according to the Kentish custom of gavelkind, to his two sons Thomas and William.

[Parl. Writs, ii. div. ii. pt. i. 17, 18, pt. ii. 5; Madox's Hist. of the Exch. ii. 230; Hasted's Kent, i. 64, 92; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 33, 34.]

J. M. R.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.14
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page Col. Line  
136 ii 13 Bankwell, John de: after 1308 read He had been alderman successively of Cripplegate (1286-9) and Dowgate (1291-8) wards, and was the first 'clerk' or Town Clerk of London on record. (Cf. Letter Book A, fo. 74 b, under date Nov. 1084.) He lost his life by being trampled on at court at Edward II's coronation, 25 Feb. 1308