Daniel Browninge of Crowfield; a Little-Known High Sheriff of Suffolk
DANIEL BROWNINGE OF CROWFIELD: A LITTLE-KNOWN HIGH SHERIFF OF SUFFOLK AND THE STOWMARKET ASSIZES OF 1695 byDAVIDALLEN SOMEYEARSAGO,in the course of archival cataloguing work in the Suffolk Record Office at Ipswich, the present writer discovered a small bundle of correspondence and papers relating to the execution of the officeof High Sheriffof Suffolkby Daniel Browninge of Crowfield in 1695.1Quite apart from their usefulnessas an illustration of the High Sheriff's duties, the working of the shriev- alty and the expenses of the officein the late 17th century, these papers are of interest on two other counts. In the first place they relate to a man who, though of sufficientlocal prominence, wealth and landed estate to qualify him for service as High Sheriff, appeared to be otherwise unknown; and secondly they concern in part the arrangements made for the holding of the Lent Assizes of March 1695 in Stowmarket, which was not the usual Assizetown. Most of the officialletters addressed to Browninge as High Sheriff were written by his Under- Sheriff,Bartholomew Paman the younger of Wickhambrook, and with a few exceptions which were to be left at Ipswich or at the Stonham 'Pie', were directed to him at his residence at Crowfield Hall. The Hall was the manor house of the manor of Crowfield-cum-Bockingin Crowfield, yet no mention of the Browninge family's connexion with the manor is to be found in any of the standard sources. Copinger's account of the descent of the manor states that it was acquired by John Har- bottle, an Ipswich merchant, from Sir Roger Wodehouse in 1547.
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