I15451: MARCOMIR 2nd Duke of East Franks (____

Notes

"Sir Thomas White was born in Reading in 1492, followed his father into the cloth trade, founded St. John's College, Oxford, and provided many scholarships and other endowments to the young people and citizens of many parts of the country. He was apprenticed to the Merchant Taylors' Company in 1504 and entered business in his own right in 1523, supported by money left by his master. He was a successful cloth merchant and made his first benevolent gift in 1542 when he made a gift (loan?) to the city of Coventry for the purchase of park land. In 1545 he gave (or lent) 2000l to the city of Bristol. He is included in the list of Aldermen of the City of London who, along with certain members of the Livery Companies, in 1544 lent the King 21,263l for his war against Scotland. The amount was not enough and the King took money directly from the people of London, offering them the alternative of serving in the army.

In 1547 he was appointed Sheriff of the City of London. In 1553 he helped to open trade across Russia with the object of finding a route to China. Of three vessels sent to north Russia only one escaped freezing to death and reached Archangel. The English merchants succeeded in attracting trade with Russia through the Baltic and drew great wealth from the furs and hemp they bought and sold.

White was dismayed by the events which affected the Church from 1535, and especially at the sacking of the monastery at Reading, which was founded at the place of Henry I's sepulchre. Only in the reign of Mary did White feel comfortable with the turn of events.

During Edward VI's last illness the Duke of Northumberland's son was married to Lady Jane Grey and the Duke determined to have Edward name Lady Jane as his successor over Mary and Elizabeth. The Lord Mayor (Sir George Barnes) was summoned to Greenwich on 8th July 1553, along with 6 or 8 Aldermen, 6 Merchant Staplers and 6 Adventurers, the latter of which included 4 members of the Merchant Taylors' Company, including Richard Hilles who was thus a signatory to the plot. The Merchant Taylors' Court was split between the Roman or Marian faction and that of Lady Jane Grey, with White clearly in the former and Hilles in the latter. Lady Jane's supporters capitulated on 19th July and Mary succeeded to the throne.

The accession of Mary was the highlight of White's life for he was knighted on the day after her coronation and shortly after elected Mayor of London. Among his first duties was the trial of the supporters of Lady Jane Grey held in the Tower of London. Other duties at this time included the protection of London from insurrections brought on by Mary's marriage to Philip of Spain, notably that of Sir Thomas Wyatt in Kent. Mary's reign resulted in the suppression of Protestants, the abolition of English service books and the re-establishment of the authority of the Pope over the English Church.

White founded St. John's College in 1555 after obtaining a license from Mary and Philip to found a College "for the learning of the sciences of Holy Divinity, Philosophy and good Arts", for one President and thirty graduate or undergraduate students. During his life he appointed the President and Fellows and the College became known for its antipathy towards the 'new learning' of the time (principally the teaching of Greek and the reading of the Scriptures in it).

In the 1560s White's fortunes declined somewhat and in 1566 he began to make arrangements for the disposal of his estate, in particular making endowments to St. John's College and towards scholarships thereto for boys of Merchant Taylors' School. He also declared trusts for a number of towns with which he had conducted trade, including Bristol, York, Canterbury and Reading; the Merchant Taylors' Company is also included in this list. It was with some reservation that he donated money to a school founded by Hilles under Elizabeth to further the interests of boys at a college founded under Mary and whose first and second Presidents had been removed after 1560 for maintaining the papal authority.

White's statutes make it clear that he first of all favoured the sons and Scholars of London in general but then goes on to declare his preference for the Merchant Taylors' Company in particular: "... and two of the senior Fellows there be assigned and named by continual succession of time forty three Scholars of honest conversation and integrity of life so instructed in grammar that they may be thought fit and able to study logic, having taken degree in no science, neither under fourteen years of age nor above nineteen, nor bastards, and as free from any blemish of the mind, so not stained with any deformity of body, either born or instructed in the grammar of London, or in the suburbs of the same, and let them all be named and chosen by the Master and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors' Company..." (from a statute of Sir Thomas White)

In founding his College of St. John he followed his own inclination and the requirements of Church and State. By the suppression of the religious houses and the confiscation of money University students.

White's career as a citizen in times of great religious trouble and perplexity is worthy of the highest praise for his dedication to public life and charity. To the close of his life his desire was always to maintain public worship in the National Church and to promote peace.
Src: http://www.mtsn.org.uk/about/white.htm.

"Sir Thomas White (1492-1567) is the only one of the four statues that is based on a living likeness, Barfield having access to the portrait owned by the Corporation. Born in Reading White, who founded St John’s College Oxford, was a wealthy tailor who became Lord Mayor of London in 1546. In his will he bequeathed the sum of £1,400 for the purchase of lands, the revenues from which to be advanced by way of an interest-free loan to young men, under the age of 35, ‘of fair name and fame’, for a period of nine years, to enable them to commence or help them in business. Five towns benefited from the bequest, the money annually rotating between Leicester, Coventry, Northampton, Warwick and Nottingham. The first loans to Leicester people were distributed in 1610 when four young men each received ten pounds.

The charity is still in existence, although the income is such that now each city is now able to lend between £300,000 and £400,000 a year. Interest free loans are given to young people to either establish a business (£10,000) or to help with their education £2,000).

Left: The arms of Thomas White: Gules, an annulet Argent, a border sable charged with three estoiles Or; on a canton Ermine a lion rampant Or."
Src: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/max.matthews/page12.htm.

My Southern Family

MARCOMIR 2nd Duke of East Franks

____ - 0414

ID Number: I15451

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James Monroe BIBBY

ABT 1820 - 3 Mar 1860

ID Number: I53259

Notes

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Mary BIZZELL

ABT 1870 - ____

ID Number: I76034

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Thomas K. BRADLEY

ABT 1833 - ____

ID Number: I84718

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Minnie Mater BROWN

23 Dec 1881 - ____

ID Number: I63430

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EMMA de BULMER

ABT 1154 - 1208

ID Number: I28055

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William Hamilton COCKFIELD

1816 - 1876

ID Number: I40655

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Nancy EDMUNDS

14 Dec 1784 - 25 Nov 1867

ID Number: I100991

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Sir THOMAS WHITE Knt.

1492 - 1567

ID Number: I59514

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