Thomas Dowdall (or Dowedall) (died c. 1492) was an Irish barrister and judge who heldthe office ofMaster of the Rolls in Ireland.
He was born in County Louth, son of Sir Robert Dowdall,who was for many years Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and his wife Anne Wogan. The Dowdall (or Dovedale)family came to Ireland from Dovedale inDerbyshire in the thirteenth century. Sir Thomas Dowdall, who married c.1450 Elizabeth Holywood, daughter of Sir Robert Holywood of Artane, andmother through her previous husband James Nugent of Richard,2nd Baron Delvinwas probably a close relative of the judge. ElizabethHollywood'sthird husband was Peter Trevers, Dowdall's predecessor as Master of the Rolls, an example of how small the world of the Anglo-Irish ruling class was in that era.
He was studying law at Lincoln's Inn in 1459. He returned to Ireland and was made Serjeant-at-law (Ireland) in 1462: he was confirmed in office by ParliamentinDecember 1469.In 1471 he was described as a "counter" (this was probably an office in the Exchequer of Ireland) and later that year he was appointed Master of the Rolls. He was summoned to England on official business in 1479.
Like the great majority of the Anglo-Irish gentry, and all the High Court judges, he made the mistake of supporting the claims of the pretender Lambert Simnel in 1487 to be the rightful King of England. Simnel's cause was crushed at the Battle of Stoke Field. The victorious King Henry VII was prepared to be magnanimous to the defeatedrebelsand Dowdall and his judicial colleagues received aroyal pardon. He probably died in 1492.
James Dowdall, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland 1583–84, was a descendant of Thomas.