# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pakington, John (d.1560)

1904 Errata appended.
​PAKINGTON, Sir JOHN (d. 1560), serjeant-at-law, was eldest son of John Pakington, by Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas Washbourne of Stanford, Worcestershire. He entered the Inner Temple, and was Lent reader in 1520. He must have had influence at court, as on 21 June 1509 he was made choreographer of the court of common pleas. On 3 June 1513 he had a grant of land in Gloucestershire, and in 1515 was a collector of aids for that county. His place at the common pleas was re-granted to himself and Austin Pakington on 12 Oct. 1525, and in 1529 he became treasurer of the Inner Temple. On 5 April 1529 he had an extraordinary grant from the king ― namely, that he might wear his hat in his presence and in the presence of his successors, 'or of any other persons whatsoever, and not to be uncovered on any occasion or cause whatsoever against his will and good liking,' and that, if made a baron of the exchequer or serjeant-at-law, he should be exempt from knighthood. In 1532 he was made serjeant-at-law, and was not knighted. He was heavily fined in 1531 for a misdemeanour in the conduct of his office. In 1535 he was made a justice of North Wales, and a commissioner to conclude and compound for all fines and debts due to Henry VII. On 31 Aug. 1540 he became custos rotulorum for Worcestershire. On 29 Sept. 1540 he was commissioner to inquire what jewels, &c., had been embezzled from the shrine of St. David's. For the rest of his life he worked in Wales, where he is spoken of as a judge, but he lived chiefly at Hampton-Lovett in Worcestershire.
Henry VIII enriched Pakington with many grants, and knighted him on his return from Boulogne in 1545. He was from time to time in the commission of the peace for various counties. Under Edward VI he was, in 1551, nominated a member of the council for the Welsh marches. He was said to own thirty-one manors at the time of his death. Henry VIII had given him Westwood, Worcestershire, and other estates, and he had trafficked in abbey lands to some extent (see Dep.-Keeper of Publ. Records, 10th Rep. pt. ii. p.247), but the account must have been exaggerated. In the subsidy roll, in which the valuations were always unduly low, he was rated at no more than 50l. a year. Pakington died in 1560, and was buried at Hampton-Lovett. He married Anne, seemingly daughter of Henry Dacres, sheriff of London, and widow of Robert Fairthwayte, and perhaps also of one Tychborne. She died in 1563. By her he had two daughters: Ursula, who married William Scudamore, and Bridget, who married Sir John Lyttleton of Frankley, Worcestershire, and after his death three other husbands. His grand-nephew, Sir John Pakington (1549-1625), is separately noticed.
[Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, v. 657, &c.; Ordinances of the Privy Council, vii. 23, 46; Nash's Worcestershire, i. 353; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 395; Metcalfe's Knights, p. 113; Strype's Annals of the Reformation, III. ii. 457. Memorials, II. ii, 161.]
W. A. J. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.214 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 88 | ii | 10 | Pakington, Sir John (d. 1560): for Lyttleton read Lyttelton |