Odds and Ends

There was a tradition that any child baptised at sea in a British ships could claim to be a native of Stepney. Many were often entered into the baptismal register of St Dunstans. The official guide to Stepney says: 'He who sails on the wide sea Is a parishioner of Stepney.'

In 1229, Roger Niger, archdeacon of Colchester was made bishop of London and so received the lands of Stepney. He fell sick and died at Bishops Hall in Stepney in 1241 and was buried at St Pauls Cathedral.

The Mott family of bell founders, possibly related to John Mott the spurrier of 1398, established their famous foundry in Whitechapel High Street. (They recast Big Ben.)

John Brown was farming land on Stepney Marsh, which was rented from the Bishops of Stepney, when he died in 1402 leaving 22 sheep.

Richard Ketyring of Hackney died in 1411 leaving wheat and in 1421 Richard Chapman of Hackney left William Vernague and 8 other people 30 sheaves of wheat.

Immigration from other parts of the country was constant for several centuries and in 1420 Richard Merlaw from Little Merlaw, Buckinghamshire died in Stepney.

Eight marks worth of beer was supplied to Thomas Wodeward, a shipman, and was still owed to John Boner in 1423. A mark was a money of account, never minted as a coin and was valued at 13s and 4 pence. (All the previous records are from Medieval London Suburbs by Kevin McDonnell)

In 1438 a Limehouse wharf was leased to Richard Calowe and living at Mile End in 1440 was Thomas Atkins and at Stratford le Bow, William Posemore.

Captain Arthur Bailey was a member of the Independent congregation in Stepney and was chosen as deacon by them on 30 April 1658. He was buried 9 February 1682 at Stepney.

Philip Caunton, a brickmaker at Whitechapel appears in the 1483 alien subsidy roll.

Richard Foxe (15th c - later Bishop of Winchester and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford) was a rector, and Richard Pace (buried 1532 - secretary of state and ambassador) a Vicar of St Dunstan's, Stepney.

A mansion in Essex Street was occupied by Elizabeth I's favourite, the Earl of Essex, who was executed in 1601.

Thomas Sutton (attended Stepney vestries in 1584-1588), the founder of Charterhouse, died at Sutton Place, Hackney in 1611.

John Newett was drowned from the ship 'London' as she lay at Ratcliffe and was buried 4 August 1632.

Contrition Sparrow was baptised at Stepney in 1649 and Luke Ayres, a glazier of Hackney left a will the following year.

Christopher Knight was a carpenter living at St Katherine's in October 1656.

At the Restoration the gates of the City were taken down and never replaced and the gateways themselves gradually disappeared only to appear in the building material of new houses being built.

At Hackney a boarding school for young ladies was kept by the Perwich family. Susann Perwich, daughter of Robert, died on 3 July 1661 and was buried in Hackney having died 'in the 25th year of her age, of a fever which she caught by sleeping in a damp bed'. '

Richard Burton of Wapping Wall died 16 December 1663 and Thomas Hughes died the same year. In 1673 John Corey died and was buried at Poplar Chapel.

Thomas Parminter, a jobmaster (a livery stable keeper who hires out horses and stables), died during the 1680's leaving 'lands and money to provide 6 almshouses and one free school for 10 poor children'. A road was named after him in Bethnal Green. In Approach Road, in Bethnal Green is Parminter's Foundation School.

During the same period John Cartwright, a Spitalfields churchwarden was imprisoned.

John Berry was buried at St Dunstans in 1689/70 and John Cope died in 1689 and was buried at Poplar chapel.

Robert Ainsworth, (1660-1743), lexicographer, who had been born at Woodvale near Manchester, was buried in 1743 at Poplar Chapel. His Latin-English, English-Latin dictionary had been published in 1736.

Sir John Pulteney, who was Lord Mayor of London four times, and Sir Thomas Spert are said to have lived in 14th century wooden manor house at Coldharbour in Blackwall. The house was was still standing in 1881 when it was 152 East India Dock Road.

Jane Thornton was the wife of John Thornton of Wapping Wall, Shadwell, London. She is buried under the floor of City Road Chapel. (Source this item only: George John Stevenson, City Road Chapel, London, and its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Memorial (1872), p.361.)