Stephen Gennings, merchant-taylor, mayor 1509, founded a fair grammar-school at Ulfrimhampton[122] in Staffordshire, left good lands, and also built a great part of his parish church, called St. Andrew’s Undershaft, in London.
Henry Keble, grocer, mayor 1511, in his life a great benefactor to the new building of old Mary church, and by his testament gave a thousand pounds towards the finishing thereof; he gave to highways two hundred pounds; to poor maids’ marriages one hundred marks; to poor husbandmen in Oxford and Warwick shires one hundred and forty ploughshares, and one hundred and forty coulters of iron; and in London, to seven almsmen six pence the week for ever.
John Collet, a citizen of London by birth and dignity, dean of Paule’s, doctor of divinity, erected and built one free school in Paule’s churchyard, 1512, for three hundred and fifty-three poor men’s children to be taught free in the same school, appointing a master, a surmaster, and a chaplain, with sufficient stipends to endure for ever, and committed the oversight thereof to the mercers in London, because himself was son to Henry Collet, mercer, mayor of London, and endowed the mercers with lands to the yearly value of one hundred and twenty pounds or better.
John Tate, brewer, then a mercer, mayor 1514, caused his brewhouse, called the Swan, near adjoining to the hospital of St. Anthonie in London, to be taken down for the enlarging of the said church, then newly built, a great part of his charge. This was a goodly foundation, with alms houses, free school, etc.
George Monox, draper, mayor 1515, re-edified the decayed parish church of Waltonstow, or Walthamstow, in Essex; he founded there a free school, and alms houses for thirteen alms people, made a causeway of timber over the marshes from Walthamstow to Lock bridge, etc.
Sir John Milborne, draper, mayor 1522, built alms houses, fourteen in number, by the Crossed Friers church in London, there to be placed fourteen poor people; and left to the Drapers certain messuages, tenements, and garden plots, in the parish of St. Olave in Hart street, for the performance of stipends to the said alms people, and other uses. Look more in Ealdgate ward.
Robert Thorne, merchant-taylor, deceased a bachelor in the year 1532, gave by his testament to charitable actions more than four thousand four hundred and forty pounds, and legacies to his poor kindred more five thousand one hundred and forty-two pounds, besides his debts forgiven, etc.
Sir John Allen, mercer, mayor of London, and of council to King Henry VIII., deceased 1544, buried in St. Thomas of Acres in a fair chapel by him built. He gave to the city of London a rich collar of gold to be worn by the mayor, which was first worn by Sir W. Laxton. He gave five hundred marks to be a stock for sea-coal; his lands purchased of the king, the rent thereof to be distributed to the poor in the wards of London for ever. He gave besides to the prisons, hospitals, lazar houses, and all other poor in the city, or two miles without, very liberally, and long to be recited.
Sir William Laxton, grocer, mayor 1545, founded a fair free school at Owndale in Northamptonshire, with six alms houses for the poor.
Sir John Gresham, mercer, mayor 1548, founded a free school at Holt, a market-town in Norfolk.