Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Frowyk, Thomas
FROWYK, Sir THOMAS (d. 1506), judge, a member of an important family of citizens of London, among whom king's goldsmiths, aldermen, and mayors are to be found (see Price, Guildhall of the City of London, 1886), was second son of Sir Thomas Frowyk of Gunnersbury, by his wife Joan, daughter and heiress of Richard and Joan Sturgeon. Born at Gunnersbury at least as early as November 1464, when he is mentioned by name in the will of his grandmother, Isabella Frowyk, he received his education at Cambridge. As Fuller (Worthies, ed. 1662, p. 183) says that he died before he was forty years old, which is confirmed by a statement in Croke's ‘Keilwey's Reports’ (ed. 1688, p. 85) that he died ‘in florida juventute sua,’ he must have joined the bar at a very early age, as his name occurs in the year-books of 1489. He was a member of the Inner Temple, and became serjeant in Trinity term 1494, according to the year-book. Dugdale, however, makes this event two years later. In May 1501 he was appointed a judge of assize in the western counties. In 1502, along with Mr. Justice Fisher and Conyngsbye, king's serjeant, he acted as arbitrator between the university and town of Cambridge, and by his award, 11 July, defined their respective jurisdictions. On 30 Sept. 1502 he succeeded Sir Thomas Wood as chief justice of the common pleas, and was knighted at Richmond the Christmas following. On 17 Oct. 1506 he died, and was buried at Finchley. According to Fuller, who says that he was ‘one of the youngest men that ever enjoyed that office,’ he was ‘accounted the oracle of law in his age.’ By his first wife, Joan Bardville, he had one son, Thomas (d.s.p.); his second wife, Elizabeth, married after his death Thomas Jakys; Frideswide, Frowyk's daughter and heiress by her, married Sir Thomas Cheyney of Shirland.
[Foss's Judges of England; Dugdale's Chron. Ser.; Cass's South Mimms, p. 99, London and Middlesex Archæolog. Soc. 1877, which corrects Foss; the Society's Transactions, iv. 260; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 10; Weever's Monuments, p. 333; Plumpton Correspondence, Camd. Soc. pp. 152, 165; Bibl. Legum Angliæ, ii. 192; Rot. Parl. vi. 522; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 332.]