Thomas Thursby (d. 1543)

He was the son of Thomas Thursby (d.1510[1]), merchant, three times Mayor of King's Lynn and the founder and benefactor of Thoresby College.

[2][3][4] The great wealth inherited to him by his father enabled him to amass large tracts of arable land, which he then enclosed, turning out the landless peasants who had hereto lived there.

The village was demolished when the landlord, the notorious Thomas Thursby, enclosed the land and converted it to pasture for his sheep.

And that those abuses were frequently accompanied by the acquisition of houses, landholdings, and commons, and how 'large estates were built up, and villages were depopulated.'

There is a reference in the record of a lawsuit in the Court of Star Chamber during the reign of Henry VIII to Thomas Thursby's 'mansion place' in Gayton.

[32] The manor of Rysyng was in the hands of the Crown as part of the duchy of Cornwall, but had been let in 1516 for twenty-one years to Thomas Thursby, of Bishop's Lynne, for 50/.

[34] In an inquiry of 1517, Thomas Thursby, lord of the manor of Gayton, was accused of enclosing arable lands in Ashwicken, Leizate and Bawsey, as well as depopulating the hamlet of Holt in the parish of Mintlyn.

[35]Thomas Thursbye of Gayton, esquire, alias of Lynn, merchant, was involved in a suit with Juliana,[36] the widow of Sir Robert Norwich (d.1535), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1538–1544.

[37][38] As the son of Thomas Thursby (d.1510), the founder of Thoresby College, he had interaction with the Mayor and burgesses regarding his father's will and its conditions: By Thomas Thorysby of Mintling, esquire, to the Mayor and burgesses to convey to them four pieces of pasture in Gaywood which were given to them by the will of Thorysby's father Thomas on condition that the Mayor and burgesses appoint a priest as master of the Charnel to instruct 6 poor children in grammar and song but were re-entered by Thorysby because the conditions were infringed.

The Mayor and burgesses undertake to appoint the priest to celebrate mass in the Charnel chapel at the west end of St Margaret's church and instruct the 6 children, 1 October 1543.

He was accused before the Star Chamber in 1535 of attacks on Adam and Ann Foster of Gayton in a dispute over lands and similarly in 1537 for assaults on Nicholas Gurling of Grimston.

Through her mother's first marriage Anne Knyvett was also the sister of Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle, who was at one time betrothed to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and later the wife of Henry Courtenay.

The Ruined St Michael's Church, Mintlyn
The Ruined Church of St James in Bawsey
The deserted village of Bawsey. Several villages are documented to have existed in this area until at least up to the 16th century. It was during that period that the then landowner - Thomas Thursby and his son - evicted their tenants by pulling down their dwellings and depriving them of their commons in order to turn the area into farmland that was converted to sheep pasture in numerous villages (four of which now lost), reminiscent of the Clearances in Scotland. The small settlement of Bawsey was destroyed by enclosures in the early 16th century and a century later the church, now in ruins, had started to deteriorate.
Track North of Church Road – The Deserted Village of Bawsey
The Wrest Part Portrait – Recently identified as Mary Neville Fiennes, Lady Dacre
Mary Neville Fiennes, Lady Dacre