John Swinnerton, Lord Mayor of London

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptised: 13 Dec 1564, St. Dionis Backchurch, Langbourn, London, England

Notes:

MP for Petersfield, 1601; for East Grinstead, 1604. Alderman of London, 1602 to his death. Sheriff of London, 1602-03. Lord Mayor of London, 1612-13. Several other offices and occupations, including commissioner of inquiry into the lands of the Main-plotters, London and Middlesex, 1603, and into the Bye-plotters, 1603. Knighted 26 Jul 1603. He was among the merchants who formed the East India Company in 1599.

He is the subject of two separate entries in the History of Parliament: one in the 1558-1603 volume, and one (as "Sir John Swinarton") in the volume covering 1604 to 1629. He also has a 1300-word entry, by Ian W. Archer, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and probably apprenticed to his father for a time. By the 1590s he was a successful importer of claret; from 1593 to 1607 he farmed the customs on French and Rhenish wines. From 1604 to 1612, he headed a series of attempts, backed by the earl of Northampton, to wrest control of the farm of the great customs from the group backed by the earl of Salisbury. These wranglings were in fact side-theatres in rivalries between magnates far more elevated than Swinnerton. When Northampton used the ongoing negotiations to launch a scathing critique of Salisbury's financial administration, Salisbury was quick to make it known that he rated Swinnerton "like a dog" and that Swinnerton would never gain the farm, "let the best friends he had in court strain what they can". (Snobbery by old families toward the upcoming urban commercial class was real and pointed. In 1602, Swinnerton purchased an estate in St. Mary Aldermanbury which included a house leased by the countess of Shrewsbury. This occasioned a letter to the countess from Sir Fulke Greville, 1554-1628, warning her of "one Swinnerton, a merchant" and expressing confidence that "your ladyship would not willingly become a tenant to such a fellow.") In the end Swinnerton had to settle for the sweet-wine customs farms and the farms of the Irish customs. He died in comfort if not great wealth; it was said on his death that he was "not so great or rich a man as he was held or made show of", but his will shows that he provided handsomely for his offspring.

Meanwhile, his career in London politics was as successful as his business dealings were tumultuous. Alderman, sheriff, twice member of Parliament (the second time probably with the patronage of the lord treasurer, Thomas Sackville, first earl of Dorset), he was clearly considered a reliable pair of hands; for instance, following the Gunpowder Plot, it was he who was given charge of Elizabeth Vaux, daughter-in-law of the noted aristocratic recusant William Vaux, during her period of interrogation. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography summarizes his term as lord mayor, 1612-13: "Among the highlights was his entertainment of the prince palatine at his inaugural feast, and on Michaelmas day 1613 the opening of the New River which brought fresh supplies of water to the City. Less well celebrated, but noteworthy for the future, was the real progress now being made in the Ulster plantation, a crown project foisted on a reluctant corporation in 1609: it was during Swinnerton's mayoralty that serious building work at Londonderry commenced, and the fledgling city received its charter."

His ODNB entry also notes a side of Swinnerton only touched on by his entries in the History of Parliament: his several associations with Elizabethan and Jacobean poets and playwrights. "He had himself benefited from a classical education under Richard Mulcaster at the Merchant Taylors' School and was the dedicatee of about twenty published works, among them a number of mainstream protestant works, but also Thomas Ravenscroft's treatise Memorable Musick (1614) and Anthony Munday's translation of the popular chivalric romance, Palmerin of England (1602). Munday addressed Swinnerton as 'my most gentle patrone'; another playwright, William Smith, described him as 'a great cherisher of the Muses'. In July 1607 when the Merchant Taylors, under the mastership of his father, entertained James I at a fabulously expensive feast, it was Swinnerton who was asked to approach Ben Jonson to write a speech of welcome to the king. Swinnerton also knew Henry Condell and John Heminges, the editors of Shakespeare's Folio, who were fellow parishioners at St Mary Aldermanbury. Heminges collaborated with Thomas Dekker on the pageants inaugurating Swinnerton's mayoralty; one of Heminges's children was baptized Swinnerton; and in his will Swinnerton left £20 to Heminges's wife, Rebecca, whom he described as 'my cousin'."

John married Thomasine Buckfold on 1 Aug 1586 in St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, England. Thomasine (daughter of Richard Buckfold and (Unknown) Cobbe) was born between 1566 and 1570; was christened in 1565; died on 9 Aug 1650 in Tottenham, London, England; was buried on 29 Aug 1650 in St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The 1604-1629 volume of the History of Parliament says they were married 1 Aug 1586; the 1564-1616 volume gives the date 22 July 1586.

1. Thomas Swinnerton was born before 26 Jan 1600; was christened on 26 Jan 1600 in Aldermanbury, London, England; died on 14 Jun 1645 in Naseby, Northampton, England; was buried in St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Swinnerton, Shropshire, England
• Alternate birth: of Dudleston, Shropshire, England

Notes:

Born in Oswestry, Shropshire, he migrated to London, where he prospered and became master of the Merchant Taylors' Company.

His will and the will of his son John both state that he was born in Oswestry, and both wills bequeath money for the relief of Oswestry's poor.¹

His own will, dated 18 Oct 1608, was a nuncupative one, taken by Peirce Williams, whose given name is spelled, in the document, both Peirce and Pearse. In it, the elder John Swinnerton calls Williams "kinsman" to his son John.

His parentage is not established, but he is widely speculated to have been a son of Richard Swinnerton of Oswestry, who may have been a younger son or grandson of Humphrey de Swynnerton of Swynnerton in Staffordshire (d. 1464) and his wife Anna (d. 1470), who was also a Swynnerton, heiress of the Hilton, Staffordshire branch of the family. In the 1633 visitation of London, his grandson Robert (1602-1652), son of John, gives a pedigree consisting only of his parent's names and that of his paternal grandfather — but the arms he gives show Swynnerton of Swynnerton quartering Swynnerton of Hilton.²

Notably for the ancestry of DDB, this database's modern descendant of all these people, the aforementioned Humphrey de Swynnerton, possible grandfather or great-grandfather of this John Swinnerton, was himself a great-grandson of Robert de Swynnerton (d. 1387) and his wife Elizabeth Beke, who are proven 18G-grandparents of DDB through one of his four "gateway ancestors," Thomas Bressey (1601-1649). And Humphrey's wife Anna de Swynnerton, of the Hilton Swynnertons, was a 6G-granddaughter of John de Swynnerton and his wife Eleanor de Peshale (d. 1254), who are proven 22G-grandparents of DDB, also through Thomas Bressey.

——

(1) Both wills are transcribed in "The Swinnertons of Oswestry," author uncredited, in Swinnerton Family History volume 6, number 4, September 1985.

(2) It must be noted that this Robert Swinnerton, clothworker and merchant of London, appears to have had family issues; he is described in 1650 as having "contumaciously" refused to administer his mother's will.

John married Mary Fawnte on 29 Jul 1563 in St. Margaret, Lothbury, London. Mary was born in Lexden, Essex, England; died before 14 Jan 1613; was buried on 14 Jan 1613 in St. Mary Aldermanbury, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of St. Margaret, Lothbury, London

Notes:

Her son John's will left 2s. a week "forever" to be distributed to the poor of Lexden, which he named as his mother's birthplace.