John de Burnham

John de Burnham (died 1363) was an English-born judge and Crown official who spent much of his career in Ireland, holding office as Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He spent many years trying to clear himself of charges of corruption, which seem to have been the invention of malicious colleagues.

He was a native of Norfolk, and was probably born in one of the group of adjacent villages which are called the Burnhams. He became parish priest of Felmersham, Bedfordshire in 1333 and was named as a tax assessor for the same county in 1340. He was a member of the Royal Household from the 1320s onwards, and gained great experience in the field of finance, especially of army accounts.

Church of St Mary, Felmersham: Burnham was the parish priest here in the 1330s.

In 1343 he was sent to Ireland as Lord Treasurer; he also became a canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and a prebendary of Cloyne. His appointment was apparently connected with complaints by the Privy Council of Ireland about the efficiency of the Irish Exchequer, and the Council's doubts about the honesty of Burnham's predecessor Hugh de Burgh. It was no doubt thought that Burnham, with his long experience of administering the English royal finances, would be a reforming Treasurer; but it is difficult to determine what, if anything, he achieved, and his long battle to clear himself of charges of corruption can hardly have made the task of reform any easier.

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