Thomas Snetterby

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Thomas Snetterby (died after 1455) was an Irish barrister, King's Serjeant and Crown official of the fifteenth century. He was remembered long after his death for giving his name to Snetterby's orchard near Kevin Street, Dublin.

He seems to have been a native of Dublin city and lived near present day Kevin Street in the city centre.[1] Little else is known of him until 1447 when he was appointed Serjeant-at-law (Ireland), "so long as he was of good behaviour".[2]He was granted the same fee- £9 per annum- as his predecessor Edward Somerton.[3]

It is unclear if he was related to Reginald de Snyterby, Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) 1424-1436.[4] Reginald came from a family with a history of producing senior judges, including Thomas de Snyterby (died 1316), who came to Ireland from Snitterby in Lincolnshire in 1285, and was a justice of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) 1295-1307, [5] and Nicholas de Snyterby, Baron of the Irish Exchequer and justice of the Common Pleas at intervals for some twenty years from 1337 onward.[6]

The office of Serjeant was an onerous one- he was not only the senior legal adviser to the English Crown (at that time outranking the Attorney General) but effectively in modern terms a Government minister. Edward Somerton is known to have complained a few years earlier that the salary was grossly inadequate given the workload.[3] Presumably Snetterby made the same complaint: by a statute of 1450 it was ordained that he was to receive the same additional payment of 100 shillings per annum as Somerton had, charged on the rents of Chapelizod and Leixlip.[7]A similar arrangement was made for Robert FitzRery, the Attorney General for Ireland (in office 1450–63). In 1455 Snetterby was described as "serjeant at laws of our sovereign lord the king in his whole kingdom of Ireland". He died or resigned some time between 1455 and 1460.[3] A statute of 1463 confirmed the right of dower of the widow of "Thomas Sueterby", which could well be a misspelling of Snetterby.

The orchard adjoining his house south of Kevin Street long outlasted the house itself, and was still know in the seventeenth century as "Thomas Snetterby's orchard".[1] Later it seems to have been called "the Chancellor's orchard".[1]

Sources[]

  • Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 London John Murray 1926
  • Hart, A. R. History of the King's Serjeant at law in Ireland Four Courts Press Dublin 2000
  • Patent Rolls 25 Henry VI
  • Warburton, John, Whitelaw James, Walsh, Robert History of the City of Dublin London 1818

Notes[]

  1. ^ a b c Warburton et. al. Vol.1 p.100
  2. ^ Patent Rolls 25 Henry VI
  3. ^ a b c Hart p.21
  4. ^ Ball, F. Elrington "The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921" p. 175
  5. ^ Ball p.57
  6. ^ Ball pp.75-6
  7. ^ Statute 28 Henry VI c.11
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