Sir Rowland Hill, mercer, mayor 1550, caused to be made divers causeways both for horse and man; he made four bridges, two of stone, containing eighteen arches in them both; he built one notable free school at Drayton in Shropshire; he gave to Christ’s hospital in London five hundred pounds, etc.
Sir Andrew Jud, skinner, mayor 1551, erected one notable free school at Tunbridge in Kent, and alms houses nigh St. Helen’s church in London, and left to the Skinners lands to the value of sixty pounds three shillings and eight pence the year; for the which they be bound to pay twenty pounds to the schoolmaster, eight pounds to the usher, yearly, for ever, and four-shillings the week to the six alms people, and twenty-five shillings and four pence the year in coals for ever.
Sir Thomas White, merchant-taylor, mayor 1554, founded St. John’s college, Oxford, and gave great sums of money to divers towns in England for relief of the poor, as in my Summary.
Edward Hall, gentleman, of Gray’s inn, a citizen by birth and office, as common sergeant of London, and one of the judges in the Sheriffs’ court; he wrote and published a famous and eloquent chronicle, entitled, “The Uniting of the Two noble Families, Lancaster and Yorke.”
Richard Hils, merchant-taylor, 1560, gave five hundred pounds towards the purchase of a house called the manor of the Rose, wherein the merchant-taylors founded their free school in London; he also gave to the said merchant-taylors one plot of ground, with certain small cottages on the Tower hill, where he built fair alms houses for fourteen sole women.
About the same time William Lambert, Esq., born in London, a justice of the peace in Kent, founded a college for the poor which he named of Queen Elizabeth, in East Greenwich.
William Harper, merchant-taylor, mayor 1562, founded a free school in the town of Bedford, where he was born, and also buried.
Sir Thomas Gresham, mercer, 1566, built the Royal Exchange in London, and by his testament left his dwelling house in Bishopsgate street to be a place for readings, allowing large stipends to the readers, and certain alms houses for the poor.
William Patten, gentleman, a citizen by birth, a customer of London outward, justice of peace in Middlesex, the parish church of Stokenewenton being ruinous, he repaired, or rather new built.
Sir Thomas Roo, merchant-taylor, mayor 1568, gave to the merchant-taylors lands or tenements, out of them to be given to ten poor men, cloth-workers, carpenters, tilers, plasterers, and armourers, forty pounds yearly, namely, four pounds to each, also one hundred pounds to be lent to eight poor men; besides he enclosed with a wall of brick nigh one acre of ground, pertaining to the hospital of Bethlem, to be a burial for the dead.