William de Notton

Sir William de Notton (died c.1365) was an English landowner and lawyer who had a highly successful career in both England and Ireland, ending with his appointment as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

He belonged to the landowning family of de Notton, who took their name from Notton in West Yorkshire. He acquired the manors of Fishlake, Monk Bretton and Woolley Hall in Yorkshire, as well as Litlington, Cambridgeshire and Cocken Hatch near Royston, Hertfordshire.

He served on a commission of oyer and terminer in 1343-5. In 1346 he became Serjeant-at-law : he was obviously an excellent lawyer, whose arguments are frequently reported in the Year Books. He became a Member of Parliament in 1349 and sat on a commission to inquire into the condition of labourers and artisans in Surrey.

In 1350 he and his wife Isabel conveyed lans at Fishlake, Monk Bretton, Woolley and Moseley to John de Birthwaite, the Prior of Monk Bretton Priory to build a chantry chapel at Woolley, where prayers would be said for the King and his family, and for Notton and Isabel and their children. The grant was possibly inspired by the ending of the first outbreak of the Black Death, a time when a sense of thanksgiving was mixed with an increased awareness of mortality.

In 1355 he was made a judge of the Court of King's Bench; on assize in 1356 he was ordered to remove the Sheriffs of Oxfordshire and Northumberland. In 1357 he was appointed to a powerful commission to inquire into an alleged affray between a servant of John Gynwell, Bishop of Lincoln and members of the Order of Hospitallers. Ironically (in view of Notton's later office as Chief Justice) the alleged instigator of the affray, Richard de Wirkeley, the Prior of the Hospitallers, was himself a former Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; while the commission included another former Irish Lord Chief Justice, Henry de Motlowe.

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