II. THE FOUNDERS OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE.
William Smyth, the chief founder of Brasenose, was the fourth son of Robert Smyth, of Peel House, in Widnes (Lancashire), and belonged to a Cuerdley family. Of the date of his birth, early education, and career at Oxford nothing whatever is certainly known. In 1492 when he was instituted to the Rectory of Cheshunt, he was a Bachelor of Law. Through the influence of the Stanley family, and of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, Smyth obtained promotion both in civil and ecclesiastical lines, until in 1491 he was elected Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. In the closing years of the fifteenth century he presided over the Prince of Wales’s Council in the Marches of Wales, and was President of Wales in 1501 or 1502. In Lichfield he founded, in 1495, a Hospital of St. John, which has preserved a portrait of him almost identical with the one owned by the College. In the same year he was translated to Lincoln. The Bishop’s connection with Oxford was renewed in 1500, at the end of which year he was elected Chancellor, retaining the office till August, 1503. This link with the University had great results, for in 1507 the Bishop established a new Fellowship in Oriel, endowed Lincoln College with two estates, and formed his plans with a view to the foundation of Brasenose. After that event there is little of importance to notice in his public life before his death on 2nd January, 1513/4.
Sir Richard Sutton, Knight, the co-Founder of Brasenose, and the first lay founder of any College, was of the family of Sutton, of Sutton near Macclesfield, and probably a kinsman of William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall in and after 1469; but no connection can be traced between this family and the wealthy Thomas Sutton who founded the Charterhouse a century later. Of his birth and education there is no record, but he was a Barrister of the Inner Temple and was made a Privy Councillor in 1497. In 1513 he was Steward of the Monastery of Sion at Isleworth, a house of Brigittine nuns. At his expense Pynson printed the Orcharde of Syon, a devotional book, in 1519. In 1522 or 1523 he received the honour of knighthood, and died in 1524.