Gazetteer of Plasterers - S

SARSON (SARSSON), Peter (fl. 1577-84)

A Plasterer who ‘cam forth of [his] yeres ouer Maye Daye 1577’, according to the entry dated (confusingly) 13 October 1576. On 23 November 1576 William Bottom was fined for the bad work of his apprentice Peter Sarson ‘don at thely Howse’. Sarson paid his abling and admission fines (15 February 1576/7) and contributed to the costs of the Parliamentary bill concerning artificers March 1580/1). He presented Denys Raystrick as his first apprentice (4 August 1581) and was fined for lateness (9 February 1581/2). A second, anonymous, apprentice was presented (16 November 1582) and on 30 August 1583, Edmund Essex paid for the return of --- from Sarson. He paid ‘for admyttyng of Robert Hall’, presumably the anonymous apprentice, on 31 July 1584, when he was also fined for lateness. Sarson would appear to have died before 17 February 1586/7, when Randall Clarkson paid for the turning over to him of Robert Hall, formerly the apprentice of Peter Sarson.

SAUNDERS, John (fl. 1595-6)

A Plasterer, presented by Mr [Edmund] Essex (28 June 1588), who paid his abling fine on 25 July 1595. He was only recorded once more, paying his beadleship fine on 27 August 1596.

SAUNDERS (SANDERS), Robert (fl. 1596-1620)

A Plasterer presented by Thomas Smith (27 June 1589), who paid his abling fine on 27 August 1596. His first apprentice was William Walston, son of a Hertfordshire glover, for 8 years (1 March 1601/2); but Saunders was fined for binding a boy before he himself had served one year as a journeyman (24 April 1602). Saunders paid to enter the Livery on 7 September 1604. His next apprentice was Simon Kempton (23 April 1610); followed by Robert Swinfroe (5 December 1611). A fine was imposed for absence from a burial (31 January 1611/12); and he was fined for lateness (25 July 1614). Griffyn Davies, son of a London labourer, was presented for 7 years (26 March 1613); William Wildbore, son of a Northamptonshire labourer, for 7 years (26 July 1613); James Davies was turned over to him from Raphe Guest (11 March 1613/14); Edward Davies II, apprentice of Thomas Hothersole, was turned over to Saunders for the remainder of his term (27 May 1616). On 25 August 1619, however, Mr Saunders asked the Company to assign Davies to a new master. When Richard Dewberry (‘late the servant and apprentice of Robert Priestman’) was turned over to John Shambrooke, the latter also agreed to pay Saunders 10s as Dewberry ‘had also remained a while with him’ (8 August 1616). 

Saunders was one of the very large team employed by the Merchant Taylors’ Company in 1607, working at 2s per day to beautify the hall before a royal visit on Election Day. [1] He was also one of the group of plasterers working at Salisbury House in 1609 at the rate of 20d per day. Saunders spent six days ‘whiting of the grett chambar and the with drayng chambere the liberary and the steyers and dyveres othere Rovmes beying doon by the dayes worke’. [2] Saunders was one of four Plasterers who stood ‘bound in recognizance’ for £100 borrowed by the Company from the Chamberlain of London (11 November 1614). He served as Junior Warden for 1612-13 and was elected Senior Warden for 1615-16 (29 September 1615). He put his mark (R S) to the Company memorandum concerning apprentices (23 February 1616/17) and to an agreement concerning repayment of the loan from the Chamber of London (23 May 1619). Saunders was last listed as an Assistant in the Quarterage Accounts for 1620 and his name was crossed through in 1621. On 23 April 1634 Widow Saunders was added to the list of those receiving charity from the Company.

SAUNDERS, Thomas (fl. 1589)

A plasterer who was presented by Thomas Smith (27 April 1582). He did not complete his apprenticehip but was fined for ill work (29 August 1589) and on 31 October 1589 he made a payment to the Company ‘for allowance of him to worke as a free brother within the Citye’.

SAUNDERS, William (fl. 1607)

A plasterer who is only recorded as one of the very large team employed by the Merchant Taylors’ Company in 1607, working at 2s per day to beautify the hall before a royal visit on Election Day. [3]

SAVAGE (SAVEDGE), Patrick (fl. 1587)

A plasterer who was presented by Thomas Warbishe (8 November 1577) as Patherycke Savedge, which suggests an Irish origin. His freedom is not recorded but in 1587 a man of the same name was employed at Old Thorndon Hall, Essex where he was making lime and serving the plasterers at 8d per day, which sounds as though he had settled for being a plasterers’ labourer. [4]

SCOLTHROPPE (SCALTROP, SCOTEROPP, SCOTHROPP), Robert (fl. 1603-20)

A Plasterer presented by Francis Mathew (28 April 1592), whose freedom was not recorded but who received charity from the Company on 25 July 1603. He paid his contribution towards ‘the King’s coming through the City’ (17 August 1604) and paid 2s 6d for an unspecified fine (7 September 1605). Scolthroppe paid his arrearages of quarterage and presented Henry Wilkinson as his first apprentice (28 November 1605). His next apprentice was John Henley (4 July 1606); followed by Thomas Wheatley (29 April 1608) and Thomas Chapman (5 December 1611). A payment was made to Scolthroppe’s wife ‘in charity’ (26 March 1613). Chapman was turned over to John Allen I (25 July 1617). On 7 November 1617 Scolthroppe returned John Slye, the servant of John Huntington; and his last apprentice was Thomas Ingall of Torsey, for 7 years (18 May 1620). Scolthroppe must have died before 5 June 1621 when a memorandum recorded that Widow Scolthroppe was to pay £4 to Richard Cotterell and take back her apprentice from him. Johan Scolthroppe received further charity from the Company (25 July 1627 and 25 January 1627/8) but her name was crossed through in the Quarterage Accounts for 1628.

SHAMBROOKE (SHANBROKE), John (fl. 1602-16)

A Plasterer who was apprenticed to Lewis Genoway (7 February 1592/3) and worked with his master for the Merchant Taylors’ Company, receiving 5d per day in December 1592; and without him in August 1594, when he was paid 16d per day for six days’ work. [5] Shambrooke paid his abling fine (24 April 1602) and donated a silver spoon valued at 10s marked with J & S (25 July 1602). His beadleship fine was paid on 29 August 1604 and he incurred fines for evil work: in Fetter Lane (2 November 1604); in Old Change (7 March 1605/6); in Philpott Lane (6 November 1606). Another fine was imposed when he presented his first apprentice, William Hutwith, whom he had kept unbound contrary to the Company Ordinances (26 March 1607). Shambrooke was sent to the Compter (11 August 1609); it turned out that he had turned his apprentice over to Mr [Thomas] Turner contrary to Orders for ‘the some of eight pounds in hand and so sold all his whole estate’ (21 August 1609). The next fines were for ill work in St Lawrence Lane and for keeping an apprentice to whom he was not entitled, as he already had one (9 July 1610). Shambrooke was employed in the Royal Works in 1610-11, working on general plastering of the Warders’ Rooms at the Tower of London. [6] When William Hutwith was freed, Shambrooke was fined again for not enrolling his man in due time (25 April 1615). A fine for bad work was also imposed when he presented his next apprentice, Robert Svinner, son of a Lancashire innkeeper, for 9 years (19 May 1615). Richard Dewberry was turned over to Shambrooke following the death of his master Robert Priestman; and as Dewberry had ‘remained a while’ with Robert Saunders, the latter was paid 10s (8 August 1616). Shambrooke’s name does not appear again in the Court Minutes and it was noted in the Quarterage Accounts for 1617 that he had died.

SHARPE, Anthony (fl. 1601; died 1629)

A Plasterer who was presented by John Wright (24 July 1594) but on 28 April 1599 Sharpe, late the apprentice of John Wright, was turned over to Robert Burton from John Pritchard (disfranchised from the Merchant Taylors’ Company) and was to serve under his first indenture, while his enrolment with Pritchard was to be discharged. Sharpe paid his abling fine (18 September 1601), was fined for ill language (18 February 1601/2), presented a silver spoon with a round gilt head (10 September 1602) and paid his beadleship fine (29 August 1604). Together with John Hoare he was fined for evil work (1 August 1605). Evil work continued to incur fines: on the back side of the Exchange (30 January 1606/7); at the Brownbakers in Distaffe Lane (16 November 1607); at an unspecified site (17 November 1608); at St Mary Hill and Garlike Hill in Thames Street (13 January 1608/9); within Aldgate (10 May 1609); in Northumberland Alley, near Aldgate (31 August 1609); in St Swithin’s Lane (11 September 1609); in Chancery Lane and Newgate Market (3 November 1609); at an unspecified site (31 January 1611/12); at Hackney (29 January 1612/13); on two occasions in Bush Lane (29 July 1614); on St Mary Hill (2 August 1615); in Broad Street and Canning Street and for setting Fowkes, a foreigner, to work [possibly Thomas Fowkes who was presented by John Tyrrell in 1595 but was never freed] (27 May 1618); for bad work twice (3 August 1621). Apart from bad work, Sharpe also incurred a fine because he had ‘set a forreiner to work in Moore Feildes’ (30 May 1616); a warning was issued to him for an unspecified offence (3 March 1616/17). John Boothouse was apprenticed to him (4 August 1606). He was followed by: Thomas Avis (26 March 1607). On 27 February 1610/11 Sharpe was fined because he had bought an apprentice when he already had one and was entitled to no more and William Wollaston was turned over from him. Sharpe presented John Sharpe, son of a Lincolnshire glover, for 9 years (2 August 1615); he was ordered to discharge a boy ‘which he hath of Romayne Cocke’ (16 November 1615); he was fined (together with Thomas Hayes) for releasing Wollaston from his apprenticeship one year early (27 May 1616); John Rymell, originally apprenticed to Thomas Hayes (died 1620), was freed as Sharpe’s apprentice (15 October 1625); John Denman, son of a Hampshire husbandman, was apprenticed for 8 years (20 February 1627). As a member of the Yeomanry he contributed 2s 6d towards the cost of the Company’s lawsuit concerning its corner house in Wood Street (2 February 1608/9). A memorandum of 11 November 1614 recorded that Sharpe and Toby Archer ‘have this daie bound each other in assumpsit by the delivery of 2d a peece in 10li to stand to the award of Robert Whitinge and William Widmore. And they to end it by St Andrews Day for all differences between them’. Sharpe and Archer then donated the money awarded to them from Whitinge and Widmore to the benefit of the Company’s poor (13 January 1614/15). Despite his endless fines for bad work, Sharpe was admitted to the Livery (5 September 1621). He was last recorded paying his assessment on 18 August 1628. Sharpe made his will on 10 July 1629, asking to be buried in his parish church of St Michael Royal, London, as near to his deceased wife as possible. His estate was left to Samuel Sharpe, son of William, his brother, of Nassington, Northamptonshire, who was named as his executor. The overseers, John Humfrey and John Rymell, were each to receive 12d for their pains. The will was witnessed by Roger Morley, John Rymell, John Denman and Edward Burgess; and was proved on 5 August 1629. [7]

SHARPE, John (fl. 1624; died 1630)

A Plasterer, son of a Lincolnsihre glover, who was apprenticed to Anthony Sharpe for 9 years (2 August 1615). He was made free and paid his fines for abling (25 August 1624) and beadlelship (11 September 1626). He was last recorded paying his assessment on 23 April 1627. Sharpe’s will was proved on 13 April 1630, when he was a parishioner of All Hallows the Less. His widow, Elizabeth, was executrix but the value of the estate was not given. [8]

SHAW, George (fl. 1622-5)

A Plasterer, son of a Surrey husbandman, who was presented by Henry Dorrey for 7 years (14 June 1615). Shaw paid his abling fine (20 July 1622) and arrearage of quarterage (12 March 1623/4). He was not listed as a member of the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts after 1625.

SHEEN (SHEYN), Randall (fl. 1559-99)

A Plasterer who was employed in the Royal Works at Whitehall Palace in May 1559. He was one of the small team who worked under Patrick Kellie in the long gallery in preparation for the visit of the French embassy. [9] On the first occasion Sheen was employed for 2 days and 2 hours and received 20d at the rate of 9d per day; this was raised to 10d per day for three days’ work later in the month. Shene was fined: for disobedience (2 November 1571); for lateness (2 September 1575); for not wearing a gown or cloak to a Court meeting (6 April 1582); for bad language (13 November 1584); for ill work in the Minories (13 April 1599). He was among those paying their contribution to the cost of the Company’s Parliamentary bill concerning artificers (March 1580/1). Richard Wyberd was apprenticed to Sheen (7 November 1572); his next apprentice was John Lee (29 April 1580); he paid for the return of Thomas Widmore from Widow Austen (13 October 1582); he presented Richard Hallam (28 April 1587, turned over to Henry Stanley on 30 April 1591); and, finally, Henry Liddington (2 May 1595).

SHEPPARD (SHEPHERD), Robert (fl. 1522-76)

A Plasterer who was a major benefactor to the Company. His name appears in a transcription made of Company records for 1522-25, paying quarterage and presenting an apprentice, Anthony Miers. [10] Sheppard was employed with others in the Royal Works at Westminster on the new gallery and ‘Crosse house’ annexed to it at Whitehall Palace for 14 days and 4 hours in   October 1531. He was paid at the rate of 7d per day and earned 8s 6d. [11] On 21 September 1548 he was one of the witnesses to the will of fellow-Plasterer William Kyrkeland. [12] His apprentice Richard Tyffyn, son of a Yorkshire husbandman, was freed in 1549 after serving over 7 years. Sheppard also acted a witness for a Fuller’s apprentice and a plasterer whose name is illegible (‘… appe’), perhaps one of the Cappe family. [13] According to documents in their archive, Sheppard made a ‘will’ on 20 April 1556 in which he donated ‘certain tenements in Addle Street in St Alban Wood Street’, adjacent to Plasterers’ Hall, to the Master and Wardens of the Company. The property was subsequently ‘devised’ by Richard and then William Brigges and was left to the Company in the will of Richard’s son James in 1591. Rental income from the property was used to pay an annuity to William Broadbent and his wife Margaret (daughter of William Brigges). [14] Sheppard was employed by the Drapers’ Company in 1564-5, lathing, loaming and mortaring walls in a company house in Bush Lane. He earned 2s 7d for 2½ days’ work and another 6d for lathing and loaming a partition. He may have been the unnamed plasterer who worked at the same address in 1565-6. On 8 August 1572 Mr Sheppard paid 2s 6d for the Court’s good will ‘to have an apprentice before the yeare be oute of his other apprentice’ and presented William Piggen the Elder. He was one of the senior members of the Company required to pay 6s 8d for his dinner (4 June 1574). Thomas Turner was the last of his apprentices to be presented (6 May 1575). [15] On 10 July 1576 Sheppard made his will as a resident of the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. To his apprentices William Piggen and Thomas Turner he left his second and third best gowns respectively. Sums of money were bequeathed to ex-apprentices: Robert Johnson – 20s; his son, Robert – 10s; Thomas Johnson – 10s; John Piggen – 10s. The residue was to be divided equally between William Piggen, Thomas Turner and Elizabeth, who had been his maidservant. [16] The will was proved on 28 July 1576 and on 15 February 1576/7 the sum of 20s was ‘Receavid of Mr Shepards executors to the use of the co.’

SHEPPEY (SHEPE, SHEPPYE, SHIPPE), Henry (fl. 1605-33)

A Plasterer who was the son of a Warwickshire farmer, apprenticed to Raphe Guest for 7 years and 1 year as a journeyman (16 June 1598). Sheppey paid the fine in lieu of serving as a journeyman and for his admission into the freedom (25 July 1605). On 23 June 1607 it was noted that he owed the Company a [silver] spoon. Sheppey was appointed Beadle for one year (19 February 1607/8) but paid to resign the post on 22 June 1608. A note was added that ‘In future the Beadle shall only attend meetings of the Master, Wardens and Assistants if he has been one himself; otherwise he must wait outside the door of their parlour’. Perhaps he was not content to act as Beadle under these considitons. Sheppey was elected as Junior Warden for 1622-3 (9 September 1622). He was repaid for money spent at Queenhithe in connection with the Company’s unsuccessful attempt to make a profit on the sale of wheat at Queenhithe Market (20 June 1623). Sheppey failed to be elected Senior Warden at his first attempt (12 September 1625) but was successful the following year (11 September 1626). He was a witness, making his mark ‘H’, to guarantee a bond when the Company had to borrow money from Thomas Atkinson (4 January 1627/8). The same mark was used by Sheppey when the dispute between him and William Widmore over ‘words spoke’ was settled in Widmore’s favour. Despite this apparent acquiescence, Sheppey was the same day dismissed from the Assistants for refusing to pay the fine agreed (23 August 1630). On 16 November 1630 Sheppey relented and paid his fine ‘for evil words’. This must have restored him to his place as an Assistant as he was one of those witnessing another Company loan, this time in connection with the rebuilding of the Company houses in Great Wood Street (23 April 1631).

Sheppey does not appear to have been a very successful master, as few of his apprentices became free of the Company: Robert Cooper II (9 July 1610); Charles Robinson, son of a Monmouthshire yeoman, presented for 8 years (29 August 1617); Edward Shore, son of a Wiltshire husbandman, for 7 years (2 September 1618); Robert Attenborough, son of a Nottinghamshire baker, for 7 years; and Sheppey promised never to take back his apprentice [presumably Shore] who has run away nor make him free (3 December 1619); Robert Castleman for 7 years (2 May 1621); John Lightfoot, son of a Cheshire husbandman, for 8 years (8 May 1623); Daniel Besford, son of a Shropshire husbandman, for 8 years (22 June 1625); Francis Hay, son of a Northamptonshire weaver, for 7 years (1 August 1627; freed 4 September 1634); John Savage was turned over to him from Kellam Roades (3 May 1633). During his career he incurred few fines: for lateness (13 October 1618); for absence (11 August & 4 November 1620); and for absence, ‘having been warned’ (22 May 1626). Sheppey was recorded working alongside Kellam Roades at the Charterhouse for 3 days at 2s per day (10 May 1628). [17] Widow Sheppey was listed as an Assistant in the Quarterage Accounts for 1632 and 1633 and on 13 October 1634 it was she who was recorded paying arrearage of quarterage.

SHUTE, William (fl. 1621-48)

A Plasterer, son of a Nottinghamshire glover, who was apprenticed to John Clarkson for 8 years (4 November 1612) and paid his abling fine (25 January 1620/21). On 11 August 1626 Shute paid his fines for beadleship and for not serving as a journeyman and presented an [unnamed] apprentice. Edward Gills, son of a Wiltshire yeoman, apprenticed himself to Shute for 7 years (25 July 1627; freed 4 September 1634). On his admission to the Livery Shute made a gift of £3 to the Company, paid for his pattern of cloth [for his Livery gown] and signed his name in the Court Minute Book (11 May 1629). He signed again when a memorandum was drawn up in connection with the rebuilding of the Company’s tenement following a fire (21 February 1630/31). Philip Reynolds, son of a Monmouthshire husbandman, was apprenticed for 8 years (26 January 1634/5); followed by George Webb, son of a Buckinghamshire brewer, for 8 years (3 July 1635). The entry was crossed through in July 1646 and annotated to the effect that the Indenture was cancelled ‘he being gon away’. Shute was fined for bad work (12 December 1636). When John Hubbard was dismissed as Junior Warden, Shute and George Ubanck, as the two senior members of the Livery, contested the election which was won by Ubanck (14 March 1637/8). Shute was, however, successful in the election for 1638-9 (10 September 1638). His next apprentice was Richard Parrott, son of a London labourer, for 8 years (14 October 1639). The Company paid Mr Shute money owing to him; no details were given but probably in connection with his wardenship (27 January 1639/40). Another fine for bad work was imposed and on the same day his son Emanuel was apprenticed to his father for 7 years (3 February 1641/2). Shute lost out again to Ubancke in the election for Senior Warden; but as Ubancke elected not to serve, Shute served in the post for 1642-3 (12 September 1642). An enigmatic entry was made on 23 April 1645 ‘to accompte here for a paire of Indentures for Mr Shute’. Ubancke defeated Shute once more in the election for Master for 1646-7 (14 September 1646). An unspecified fine was levied (7 December 1646). Richard Andrews, son of a Nottinghamshire weaver, was his next apprentice, for 8 years (8 February 1646/7). Shute successfully contested the election to be Master for 1647-8 (6 September 1647). His son, Emanuel, was made free and paid his abling fine but ‘by patrimony’ was crossed out (29 June 1648). He was succeeded by William Robinson, son of a Gloucestershire husbandman, for 7 years (10 July 1648; freed 20 August 1655). On 30 March 1653 Widow Shute became a Company pensioner. On 23 April 1658 it was ‘Ordered that the warden doe pay unto Mistress Shuts daughter the summe of Twenty shillings towards her burial besides her pencion’.

SIDDOWNE (SEDDOWNE), John (fl. 1621-26)

A Plasterer who was the son of a Derbyshire cooper, apprenticed to John Towson for 7 years (26 August 1614). Siddowne paid his abling fine and was paid ‘for his worke donne for those of the Companie his terme not ended & being servant to the companie.’ (5 September 1621) [Towson had died 1616-17]. Siddowne’s beadleship fine was paid (30 July 1623) and his name last appeared when he paid arrearage of quarterage on 25 January 1625/6.

SILBY (SELBIE), Matthew (fl. 1612-20)

A Plasterer, son of a Bedfordshire butcher, apprenticed to George Ashbridge for 8 years (6 July 1604). As ‘George Asbridge’s man’ Silby was committed (27 April 1612). He was made free (31 July 1612) and put his mark to a Company memorandum concerning apprentices (23 February 1616/17). Silby’s name continued to appear in the Quarterage Accounts until it was annotated ‘dead’ for 1620.

SIMMS (SYMES), Thomas (fl. 1616-25)

A Plasterer presented by Percival Godbeheare (25 July 1608), who paid his abling and admission fines (29 August 1616) and put his mark to the Company memorandum concerning apprentices (23 February 1616/17). Simms was last recorded in the Court minutes paying an assessment (28 May 1624) and his name ceased to be listed among the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts after 1625.

SIMPSON, Anthony (fl. 1616-28)

A Plasterer whose name only appears in the Court minutes when he was apprenticed to Richard Morris (25 January 1608/9) and was made free (30 April 1616). He was listed among the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts until 1628.

SIMPSON, Brian (fl. 1579)

A Plasterer who was presented by Raphe Bettes (1 September 1571) and freed on 13 October 1579, when he also made a donation to the poor.

SIMPSON, Robert (fl. 1599; died 1607)

A Plasterer who must have been one of the many young men presented as anonymous apprentices as his name first appears when he paid his abling fine (8 February 1598/9). Simpson was fined for ill work in Finch Lane (14 August 1601). His first apprentice was Thomas Dodd, son of a London Clothworker, for 8 years (11 August 1604). Simpson and Richard Fisher were each fined 10s for abusing Mr [Hugh] Capp, for which they were ‘both sorry and repent them of the same’ (7 September 1605). Evil work incurred further fines: in St Martin’s (6 November 1605); in Warwick Lane (30 January 1606/7). Simpson made his will on 22 September 1607, asking to be buried in church as near to his children as possible. His unborn child was to receive £60 at the age of 21 years and his wife was left £40 and all their movable goods. His two brothers (one ‘in the cuntrie’) each received 40s and the poor of his parish were left 20s. Goodman Owle, Goodman Marchaunt and Goodman [Henry] Bettes were left 10s each; and ‘to my man Thomas’ [Dodd] he bequeathed all his scaffolding and tools. The will was proved on 30 November 1607. [18]

SLARED (SLARETT, SLAREY, SLARNT), John (fl. 1593-29)

A Plasterer who was bound and presented by Ellis Johnson (9 July 1586), freed (27 July 1593) and paid his beadleship fine (23 August 1594). Slared was fined for: ill work (8 November 1594 & 20 February 1594/5); ill work in Paul’s Churchyard (14 November 1595); evil work (1 August 1605); for ‘doing a peece of work at Queene Hithe contrary to thorder’ (28 August 1607). His first apprentice, Peter Eaton, son of a Nottinghamshire husbandman, was presented for 7 years (30 May 1599); followed by Randall Arder (1 August 1605); William Bowes, apprentice of Matthew Barrett, was turned over to him (25 March 1614). A memorandum of 25 July 1602 noted that 50s was to be paid to the Company in instalments by George Ashbridge and John Slared, on behalf of Pierce Godbeheare, to which Slared put his mark. He paid for his pattern on his election to the Livery (6 August 1608). Slared was one of the numerous plasterers engaged on routine work at the Charterhouse. He worked for 25 days at 2s per day between 23 May and 17 July 1614. [19] The election for 1615-16 was the cause of dissension when Thomas Widmore, Slared and Richard Slater refused to  serve as Junior Warden alongside Richard Rawlidge, who was accused of being ‘a couseninge knave & made himselfe sure to a woman & married her not’ (11 & 13 September 1615). Slared was, however, fined for ‘miscallinge’ Mr Rawlidge (31 October 1615). On 23 February 1616/17 Slared sought leave to be discharged from the Livery, to which the Court reluctantly consented. On the same day he put his mark to the Company memorandum concerning apprentices. A payment was made to Slared, probably in connection with the refurbishment of the Company Hall (12 August 1625). He received charity from the Company (15 October 1625) and two further donations, he ‘being weake’ and he ‘being verie sicke’ (25 March and 23 April 1629); and a final benevolence (14 September 1629).

SLARED, William (fl. 1601)

A Plasterer who was presumably another of the numerous apprentices presented anonymously, as his name only appears once in the Company records, when he presented his own son, also William, for 7 years (6 February 1600/01).

SLATER (SLAWTER), Richard (fl. 1595-1622)

A Plasterer who was presented by Richard Smith I (18 August 1587), turned over to Hugh Capp (7 December 1589) and who paid his fines for his abling (3 July 1595) and beadleship (27 August 1596). Slater was elected to the Livery and paid for his pattern (6 August 1608). The election for 1615-16 was the cause of dissension when Thomas Widmore, John Slared and Slater all refused to  serve as Junior Warden alongside Richard Rawlidge, who was accused of being ‘a couseninge knave & made himselfe sure to a woman & married her not’ (11 & 13 September 1615). Slater was himself elected as Junior Warden for 1616-17, when Rawlidge was rehabilitated as Senior Warden (29 September 1616). Slater put his mark to the Company memorandum concerning apprentices (23 February 1616/17). Slater was sworn in as Senior Warden for 1620-21 (29 September 1620). A problem arose with the accounts for this year and Mr Slater, together with the Master and Senior Warden, was called to pay 9s 4d which was lost during their tenure of office through receipt of ‘light gould’, which was an ‘insufficient answere and excuse’ (25 October 1621). Slater’s first apprentice was Robert Hampton, son of a Warwickshire baker, for 8 years (14 August 1601); followed by Robert Ballence, a Leicestershire weaver, for 8 years (24 June 1602); John Kent (22 April 1609); John Bryan (11 August 1609); Richard Piercy (23 April 1612); John Daniell, Mr [Hugh Capp’s] apprentice, was ordered to serve Warden Slater for the rest of his time (4 December 1616); Christopher Beane was turned over to him from John Morley (1 May 1617); Roger Coxe, son of a Gloucestershire weaver, for 8 years (29 April 1618); Gregory King, son of a Leicestershire baker, for 8 years (26 July 1619); John Hussey (13 October 1620). Slater was fined when he was absent from a burial (31 January 1611/12); and for absence (4 November 1618). On 31 July 1622 a payment was recorded for Mr Slater’s burial. Widow Slater continued to run the business until at least 4 May 1625.

SLEIGH (SLEY, SLIGHE, SLLEYE, SLYE), Paul (fl. 1601-19)

A Plasterer who was presented by Ellis Jones (5 April 1594) but whose abling fine was ‘per Mr [Hugh] Capp (1 August 1601). Sleigh paid his beadleship fine (28 July 1602) and donated a gilt spoon with his initials P.S. (10 September 1602). He was one of the team working for the Merchant Taylors’ Company in October 1602 at the rate of 18d per day. They were engaged on painting the gates and the court of the Hall, with supplies of white lead, red lead, gallons of oil, size, Spanish white, russet and yellow ochre but the total number of days worked is not given. [20]

Sleigh rapidly entered the Livery (7 September 1604) and presented his first apprentice, Edward Dorrey (5 May 1606). He was fined for evil work (30 January 1606/7) and for absence from a burial (25 January 1611/12). Further fines were imposed for bad work (12 August 1614); for absence from Court meetings (1 August 1616); and for absence (5 February 1618/19). Between January and April 1608 Sleigh was one of the team of plasterers working at Salisbury House ‘whiting of the grett chambar and the with drayng chambere the liberary and the steyers and dyveres othere Rovmes beying doon by the dayes worke’. The plasterers were paid by the day and Sleigh worked for 6 days at 20d per day. [21] Sleigh was listed as the Plasterer in Prince Henry’s Household Accounts in 1610; [22] and was included among the artisans who received mourning cloth in December 1612, following the Prince’s death. [23] On 16 September 1613 William North petitioned the Court of Aldermen, claiming that by order of precedence in the Livery, he should have been chosen as Younger Warden but Sleigh had been elected. [24] The Company allowed North to serve as Junior Warden for 1613-14 and Sleigh was elected to the post the following year (29 September 1614); and was then sworn in as Senior Warden for 1617-18 (29 September 1617). He was able to sign his name to the Company memorandum concerning apprentices (23 February 1616/17) and was a signatory to the agreement for the repayment of a Company loan from the Chamber of London (23 May 1619). Sleigh’s subsequent apprentices were: John Needham (17 July 1614); John Rawlins 24 April 1615); Henry Chippinge was turned over to him (14 June 1615); Anthony Parker (23 April 1619; freed 29 March 1627); Robert Dainty (11 June 1619; freed 25 July 1627). Sleigh was recorded as ‘died’ in the Quarterage Accounts for 1619.

SMITH (SMYTH), John I (fl. 1590-1)

‘John Smyth the plasterer’ was employed at Gray’s Inn in 1590-91, mending the walls of various chambers, earning 18s 6d. [25] He may or may not have been a member of the Company.

SMITH (SMYTH), John II (fl. 1600)

A Plasterer who paid his abling fine on 13 October 1600 but who is otherwise unrecorded in the Company archives.

SMITH (SMYTH), John III, the elder (fl. 1623-62)

A Plasterer, son of a Kent yeoman, presented by Robert Clayton for 8 years (30 June 1615). He paid his abling fine (11 July 1623) and his beadleship fine (29 August 1626), by which date he was distinguished from his namesake as ‘the elder’. He paid the fine for not serving one year as a journeyman (3 July 1628). On 11 May 1629 Smith was among those admitted to the Livery who paid for their pattern of cloth and made a gift of £3 to the Company, confirmed by his signature. He was also a signatory to the Company memorandum about raising money to rebuild the Company’s tenement after a fire (21 February 1630/1). Smith was runner-up in the election for Junior Warden for 1640-41 but was selected when the successful candidate, Thomas Avis, paid the fine to avoid serving. Smith lost out to Avis again in the election for Senior Warden for 1643-4 but once again took over the office (11 September 1643). In that role he was called upon, with the Master, to settle a dispute between William Rowe and John Clarke (28 May 1644). He was not elected Master for 1647-8 (6 September 1647) but was chosen for 1648-9 (11 September 1648). When the position of Beadle became vacant, Smith was the successful applicant (25 January 1650/1). He was one of several senior members of the Company who made up a committee appointed to let the ‘corner house’ (23 April 1651). Similarly, he was one of those nominated to treat with the Bricklayers’ Company about the price of lime (30 May 1652). Smith donated a gift to the Company of one dozen flaxen [linen] napkins and a flaxen tablecloth (- September 1652). He was again one of those signing a memorandum agreeing to a reduction in the Company’s expenses on ‘feasting at the Hall’ (25 July 1660); and joined a committee ‘to consider what is necessary in renewing the Company’s Charter’ (13 October 1661).

Smith took Ezekiel Wade, son of a Northamptonshire husbandman, as his apprentice for 8 years (3 July 1628; Smith was fined for freeing his apprentice before his term was completed on 20 November 1635). Richard Smith, son of a London Glazier, apprenticed himself to Smith (3 May 1633; freed 7 May 1641). When Ezekiel Wade was freed, his brother Thomas took his place for 7 years (20 November 1635; freed 1 December 1642). William Draynor, son of a husbandman from Kent, apprenticed himself for 8 years (5 November 1640); Edward Fatheree, son of an Oxfordshire freemason, for 8 years (2 July 1641; freed 10 September 1649); Richard Evans, son of a London Clothworker, for 7 years (25 January 1642/3; freed 31 January 1649/50); Edward Langley was turned over to Smith following the recent decease of his master, Eusebius Gurrey (25 July 1646; freed 6 April 1649). [26] William Thurlby, son of a Northamptonshire chandler, was presented for 8 years (2 June 1647; freed 24 April 1655); Thomas Tugwell, son of a Southwark carpenter, for 7 years (25 July 1648); George Watling, son of a Middlesex glover, for 9 years (28 May 1650 but his indenture was cancelled as he ran away); Thomas Cowley, son of a Northamptonshire husbandman, for 7 years (24 April 1655; freed 23 April 1662) ;  Smith’s son, Samuel, was freed by patrimony (5 September 1655); Edmund Lavender, son of a Bedfordshire yeoman, apprenticed himself for 7 years (25 July 1657); Nathan Cowley (brother of Thomas) for 7 years and Smith was fined for not enrolling him (23 April 1662). Together with James Goodall he was fined for bad work at Duke Humphrey’s (7 May 1630). Bad work incurred another fine (27 January 1639/40); and lateness another (26 January 1640/1); absence (9 February 1642/3); bad work with William Hollins (30 October 1643); bad work (26 June 1645/6). He was fined for freeing Edward Fatheree early 10 September 1649); for absence (25 May 1658); for lateness (3 June 1659); and again for absence (9 September 1662).

SMITH (SMYTH), John IV, the younger (fl. 1624-8)

A Plasterer who was the son of a Middlesex tailor, presented by Thomas Hancock for 7 years (1 May 1617). He paid his abling fine (26 July 1624) and his beadleship fine (1 September 1626). Smith paid arrearage of quarterage on 13 October 1628 but his name does not appear again in the Company records.

SMITH (SMYTHE), Leonard (fl. 1591-1610)

A Plasterer who was presented by Thomas Whitfield (16 November 1582). When he paid his abling and admission fines he also paid ‘other debts to the Company’ (16 June 1591). In 1594-5 the Clothworkers’ Company was engaged on ‘the newe building of the parlour’. In the week beginning 13 June 1595 Smith was one of the group of plasterers employed, working just 2 days for 2s 8d. [27] In the following year the Skinners’ Company was also building a ‘New Parloure’. In June 1596 Smith worked at 16d per day for 5 days, earning 6s 8d. [28] Smith’s first apprentice was John Butler, son of a Northamptonshire yeoman, for 8 years from Midsummer 1598 (11 May 1598). Robert Widmore was turned over to him from John Betaugh (28 April 1600). He was followed by: Steven Graye (11 April 1606); Christopher Scott for 8 years (26 January 1606/7); William Hale (23 April 1610). On 9 July 1610 a payment was made to Smith, ‘a poore man of this company who lieth very sicke’. In the Quarterage Accounts for 1611 his name is annotated ‘dead’. Widow Smith continued to pay quarterage until her name was crossed through in 1620.

SMITH (SMYTHE), Richard I (fl. 1567-87)

A Plasterer who is first recorded when he was working for the Royal Works at Greenwich Palace in July 1570. He was still an apprentice when he was one of the men who were plastering and blacking the Tennis play and whiting various lodgings. He worked for 12 days at 12d per day. [29]Smith paid his abling fine (25 January 1572), his admission fee of 6s 8d (8 May 1573) and his beadleship fine (6 November 1573). He was fined for lateness (2 September 1575) and paid his contribution to the Company’s Parliamentary bill concerning artificers (- March 1580/1). His first apprentice was William Billopps (5 February 1579/80); the second was Richard Slater (18 August 1587); and Smith’s name did not appear again in the Company archive.

SMITH, Richard II (fl. 1620; died 1627)

A Plasterer, son of a Suffolk husbandman, who was presented by John Pitcher for 8 years (29 April 1613). Smith paid his abling fine (5 May 1620) but made his mark when he refused beadleship, despite being elected (25 July 1621). Rather late in the day he paid the fine for not serving one year as a journeyman and presented Richard Sleepe, son of an Oxfordshire cook for 8 years (22 May 1626; freed 9 August 1633). Smith made his will on 23 May 1627 as a parishioner of St James Garlickhythe, in Vintry Ward. He left 2s 6d to his two brothers and 13s 4d each to his two sisters. The 5s owed by his father-in-law Thomas was to be paid to his mother, Anne Fashion. John Waterhouse was to receive ‘the best pewter dish (except one) which I have’. His servant and apprentice, Richard Sleepe [incorrectly entered as Sharpe] was to be given one year off his apprenticeship, if he served Widow Smith faithfully; in which case he was also to receive ‘all such scaffolding, ladders, planks & other material … belonging to the trade of a Plaisterer’. The residue of goods, chattels, plate, jewels, ready money and debts were bequeathed to his wife and sole executrix, Margaret. Probate was granted on 23 August 1627. [30]

SMITH (SMYTHE), Thomas (fl. 1569-96)

A Plasterer who was working in the Royal Works at Eltham Palace in May-June 1569. He was employed for 16 days, with others, mending walls and ceilings in the Queen’s and other lodgings and offices at 12d per day. [31] Smith presented anonymous apprentices (17 June 1575 & 6 April 1582) and paid an unspecified fine (15 August 1577). He paid his contribution to the Company Parliamentary bill concerning artificers (- March 1580/1). Thomas Saunders was apprenticed to him (27 April 1582) and Robert Saunders followed (27 June 1589). Thomas Mason was presented on 2 July 1596, the last date on which Smith’s name appears in the Court Minute Book.

SMITH, William (fl. 1622; died 1642)

A Plasterer, son of a Hertfordshire pewterer, presented by Thomas Noden for 7 years (25 July 1615). He was turned over to John Humphrey (30 May 1616), achieved his freedom (16 August 1622) and made a ‘free gift’ to the Company (14 November 1623). His beadleship fine followed (20 November 1628). Smith was able to sign his name when paying for the pattern for his Livery gown and made another gift to the Company (2 June 1629). On 7 May 1630 an enigmatic entry reads: ‘spent of those men of the Yeomanry that wee sent to take a veiwe of St Thomas Apples Church which was adooing by William Smith because hee wold not believe us.’ Smith was a signatory to the memorandum about the assessment needed to purchase property for the Company (21 February 1631). In 1637-8 the Merchant Taylors’ Company felt the need to enlarge their almshouses at Tower Hill (built in 1593) and William Smith was the plasterer employed. [32] He was elected to serve as Junior Warden for 1639-40 (9 September 1639). Smith was fined for: bad work at St Laurence Lane end (21 August 1627); absence and ‘taking worke of a bricklayer’ (20 November 1628); bad work at the Queen’s Head behind the Shambles (12 August 1630); bad work in Wood Street and another place (9 August 1631); bad work at the Black Swan in Thames Street, at the Dagger in Friday Street, in Wood Street and at St Thomas Thappostle (31 August 1632); bad work (12 August 1636 & 7 November 1639); lateness (26 January 1640/1). Smith was master to several apprentices: Nathaniel Kymnell, son of an Oxfordshire husbandman (30 August 1627; freed 23 April 1635); Richard Berrie, son of a Bedfordshire tailor, for 7 years (25 January 1631/2); Richard Adamthwaite, son of a Yorkshire husbandman, for 7 years (25 July 1633; freed 13 October 1640); Anthony Atkins was turned over to him from William Greenhill (4 December 1639; he was turned over again to Rowland Moynes on 25 January 1643 and freed by Widow Moynes on 3 April 1646); Thomas Palmer, son of a Northamptonshire baker, for 7 years (13 October 1640; turned over to Nathaniel Kymnell on 11 September 1643 and freed on 11 January 1647/8). On 2 June 1642 Smith made his will, leaving 40s to the poor of the parish of All Hallows the Great, Tower Street; £21 in annuities to his mother and daughter; £40 in cash legacies to various family members, ranging from £2-£20; and £2 to his friend and executor Thomas Doorebarr, Citizen and Carpenter. The residue of the estate was left to his wife, Dowsabell, and the will was proved on 18 June 1642. [33]

SPACY, Francis (fl. 1572)

A Plasterer whose name only appears when he paid his abling fine on 16 May 1572.

SPARROW, Francis (fl. 1574-86)

A Plasterer whose name first appears in the Court Minute Book when a payment was made for his arrest (4 February 1574). This was followed by a payment ‘for making a [sic] obligacion for Frauncis Sparowe’ (18 November 1575). He was arrested again in July or August 1576 [date is illegible]. Richard Brigges was paid 6d for Francis Sparrow’s debt (13 October 1577); and Sparrow made a part-payment of a fine (26 July 1582). He was fined for lateness (22 April 1583) and was last recorded paying arrearage of quarterage on 13 October 1586.

SPEED, Michael (fl. 1625-49)

A Plasterer from Hertfordshire who was presented by Henry Stanley for 7 years (23 April 1618) and paid his fines for his freedom and abling (25 July 1625). Speed paid a fine for absence (22 October 1630). He paid his beadleship fine and contribution towards rebuilding the Company’s corner house (10 August 1632). Clerk’s error in entering ‘Michael Steede’ (confusing Michael Speed with Miles Steed) makes it unclear which of them was fined for bad work and other offences on 11 May 1637. [Similar confusion caused Speed to be recorded as a member of the Livery in 1633.] Speed was certainly fined for bad work at the same time that he took his first apprentice, John Blunt, son of a Derbyshire tanner, for 8 years (5 September 1637; freed 11 September 1645). He was fined for absence (7 November 1639) and chose to pay the fine rather than enter the Livery (13 September 1644). This fine was paid in full on 11 September 1645. Speed was last recorded paying arrearage of quarterage on 24 January 1648/9.

SPENCE (SPENCER), Roger/Robert (fl. 1563-93)

A Plasterer whose name first appears in the records of the Clothworkers’ Company when they were building four new houses in Mark Lane in 1563. Between August and October of that year Spence was one of the plasterers employed there, working a total of 28 days at 16d per day. [34] Spence was next employed in the Royal Works at Greenwich Palace. Between December 1567 and January 1567/8 he was one of the plasterers engaged in ‘new whiting and washing the Queen’s privy lodgings and other places in the court needful to be done’. Working at 12d per day for 32 days and 7 nights, he received 39s. In May 1568 he worked another 20 days there, lathing and plastering a partition in my Lord of Leicester’s lodging within the Friars. [35] On 7 December 1571 Spence paid for the return of John Gartwith, presumably his apprentice. On 13 October 1572 he paid for the return of Robert Fawconer, presumably another apprentice. Spence presented Christopher Craven (25 January 1573/4). He must already have been a member of the Livery as he paid for his pattern for the renewed livery gowns (4 June 1574). He was one of those fined for coming to the Hall in his cloak (4 February 1574/5); and paid an unspecified fine (13 October 1577). Spence presented Christopher Platt (25 July 1578); followed by Matthew Harrison (29 April 1580). Spence paid his contribution towards the Company’s Parliamentary bill ‘touching artificers’ (23 April 1581). John Fisher was his next apprentice (25 July 1588). Spence was fined for ill work at Mr Sackford’s in Wood Street (18 June 1590). His name last appears when he presented James Smith without payment on account of his poverty (7 February 1592/3).

SPENCER, William (fl. 1604-16)

A Plasterer who was apprenticed to Henry Willis (12 August 1597). When he was made free he donated a white [silver] spoon and paid the fines for admission and for not serving one year as a journeyman (2 November 1604). Spencer appears to have been a truculent member of the Company and was fined for striking John Shambrooke (26 November 1606); for ‘evil demeanour and quarrelling’ (28 April 1607); ‘for being discharged of his beadleship’ (28 April 1609); and for keeping his apprentice, Thomas West, for two years without presenting him (13 October 1609). Spencer continued to be listed in the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts until 1616 but was noted as ‘dead’ in 1617.

SPOONER, Roger (fl. 1602; died 1622)

A Plasterer presented by Edmund Harrison (8 November 1594), who paid his abling fine (1 March 1601/2) and donated a gilt spoon with his initials R.S. (5 August 1602). He paid his beadleship when he made his contribution to the City loan to the King (23 November 1604). Spooner was fined for evil work (1 August 1605) and was sent to the Compter (28 August 1607). Evil work in Shoreditch incurred a further fine (15 June 1608); as did bad work (19 May 1615); bad work at Boar’s Head Alley in Fleet Street (6 November 1616); bad work in Newgate Market (23 February 1616/17); absence and bad work near Chick Lane (25 July 1618); absence again (25 January 1618/19). Spooner paid the fine to avoid entering the Livery (19 October 1621). In 1608-9 Spooner spent ten days working on the building and repair of houses in the churchyard of St Dunstan in the West, alongside George Echell and Henry Jones. [36] Spencer’s first apprentice was William Butcher (23 April 1611); followed by Thomas Orlage from Northamptonshire (13 January 1614/15). Spooner paid an assessment on 9 August 1622 but when Orlage was freed on 28 November 1622 Spooner was ‘deceased’. He had made a will dated 18 September 1622 of which full details do not survive. He was a parishioner of St Dunstan in the West and left an estate valued at £37 10s 2d to his widow, Joanna. [37]

STAINROD (STANERODD, STANIROD, STAYNEROD, STENEROD, STONROD), Anthony (fl. 1613-33)

A Plasterer who, unusually, obtained his freedom by redemption (12 May 1613). His [unnamed] man was committed (17 July 1614). A memorandum recorded that ‘this daie Anthony Stainrodd had freely by consent of this court his bedleshippe forgiven him’ (31 October 1615). He signed his name to the Company memorandum about apprentices (23 February 1616/17). Stainrod was given leave to bind an apprentice by all except Mr [Thomas] Widmore, and presented William Rich, son of a Derby roughmason, for 10 years (13 October 1617). His next apprentice was James Gillson, son of an Irish mason, for 8 years (24 April 1620); followed by William Martin, son of a Dorset baker, for 7 years (5 June 1621); his son, Samuel for 7 years (26 November 1624); Edward Ellis from Middlesex for 7 years (25 April 1626; freed 18 July 1633); John Preston, son of a Middlesex labourer, for 7 years (3 May 1633). Stainrod was fined only once, for absence (23 April 1627). He was last listed as paying arrearage of quarterage on 14 October 1633. A charity payment was made to Anthony Stainrod’s widow on 25 January 1652/3.

STAND, James (fl. 1577)

A Plasterer whose name only appears in the Company records when he paid an unspecified fine on 13 October 1577.

STANFOURTH (STARNFORTH), Richard (fl. 1596)

A Plasterer who was ‘carried to prison’ (4 June 1596) and paid his abling fine on 2 July 1596.

STANLEY, Abraham (fl. 1618-25)

A Plasterer who was freed by patrimony as the son of Henry Stanley (29 April 1618). He was listed among the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts until 1625.

STANLEY, Alexander (fl. 1610-20)

A Plasterer who was the son of a Cumberland husbandman, presented by James Stanley for 8 years (24 April 1602). He was freed (4 June 1610) and paid his beadleship fine (30 September 1612). Ill work and absence incurred a fine (18 November 1612). Stanley’s name continued to be listed among the Yeomanry in the Quarterage Accounts until 1619 but was annotated ‘dead’ in 1620.

STANLEY, Henry (fl. 1580-1625)

A Plasterer presented by James Stanley (8 August 1572), who paid his abling fine and made a donation to the poor on 26 July 1580. Stanley made his contribution to the Company’s Parliamentary bill concerning artificers (23 April 1581) and presented his first apprentice, William Clay (13 November 1584). The next was Richard Ducker (29 July 1586), followed by Richard Hallam who was turned over to him from Randall Sheen (30 April 1591); John Begg (9 September 1591); William Carter, son of a Bedfordshire tailor, for 8 years (30 November 1599);

Christopher Pant, son of a Cumberland yeoman, for 7 years and 1 year as a journeyman (29 February 1599/1600); Henry Wilkinson, son of a Nottingham shoemaker, for 8 years (6 July 1604); Miles Underwood (1 August 1605; it was noted that Underwood ‘went from his master’ on 10 February 1609/10); Thomas Smyth (4 July 1606); John Becke, son of a Yorkshire yeoman, for 7 years (29 January 1607/8); John Rowe was turned over to Stanley after his master, Thomas Oldham, died; Stanley was to pay up to 20s of legal costs incurred in the case of Rowe (19 February 1609/10); Anthony Oldham (23 April 1610); John Carter (14 June 1611); Michael Speed for 7 years (23 April 1618); John Morley II, apprentice of Thomas Widmore, was turned over to him (30 April 1619); Richard Bancock, son of a Hertfordshire labourer, was apprenticed for 7 years (20 July 1622). Stanley paid for his pattern for the Livery in two instalments (31 July 1590 & 23 February 1598/9) and served as Junior Warden for 1599-1600. On 14 October 1599 Raphe Guest acted as his deputy at a Quarter Day meeting. Stanley was Senior Warden for 1603-4 and Master for 1610-11 (10 September 1610). Stanley was employed twice by the Carptenters' Company, providing 'stuffe and workmanshippe' at a cost of £7 when their hall was extended in 1595 (GL MS 4326/3, f 16r). He was paid again in 1611 for 'worke done about the hall', receiving £3 5s 6d (Records of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, Vol VII, Wardens' Accounts 1592-1614). In 1609-10 Stanley was employed in the Royal Works for 4½ days at the Tower of London, where he was ‘stoppinge of glasse with lyme and haire’, for which he provided the materials and received 8s 6d. [38] Stanley paid contributions towards the cost of the Company’s lawsuit against ‘foreigners’ (30 April 1616, 2 & 14 September 1618); and was one of the Assistants to review the accounts of the outgoing Master and Wardens when they were examined (19 October 1621). Fines were levied for: keeping his hat on ‘at the standing at Christmas – 4d’ (3 January 1600/01); unspecified (6 February 1600/01); ill work (26 July 1601); evil work in Huggin Lane (1 February 1604/5); evil work in Thames Street (6 November 1605); ill work in Thames Street, over against the Steelyard (23 May 1606); evil work (20 February 1611/12). Stanley and Mr [Richard] Ratcliffe II were fined for ‘uncivell and unseemelie speaches to each other’ (20 July 1622). In the Quarterage Accounts for 1625 Henry Stanley is recorded as ‘dead’ which is presumably why his apprentice, Richard Bancock, was turned over to Richard Browne I on 25 January 1625/6).

STANLEY (STANDLEYE), James (fl. 1563-1616)

A Plasterer who in 1563 was working for the Clothworkers’ Company as part of a small team under Richard Denham, building four new houses in Mark Lane. Stanley worked for 6 days in July and another 6 days in September at 16d per day. [39] He was employed by the Royal Works at Greenwich Palace in November 1568. He was among the group working on ‘new plastering the great Chamber and the gallery into the park’, earning 24s at the rate of 12d per day. [40] Stanley presented numerous apprentices: Henry Stanley (8 August 1572); Henry Towson (24 June 1580); he paid to have an unnamed apprentice turned over to him (25 July 1589); Nicholas Dringe (29 June 1590); William Booth (2 August 1594); Henry Wilson (31 January 1594/5); Alexander Stanley (24 April 1602); George Adby (1 August 1605); Thomas Grigg (6 November 1607 & 29 January 1607/8); John Mason, son of a Northumberland mason, for 7 years (9 July 1612); Guy Dobbins, apprentice of Thomas Ancell, was turned over to him (23 April 1613); William Knight was turned over to him following the death of his master, George Mason (3 June 1613). Stanley paid his contribution towards the cost of the Company’s Parliamentary bill concerning artificers (23 April 1581). On being chosen for the Livery he paid for his pattern (10 September 1585). He served as Junior Warden for 1587-8 and Senior Warden for 1595-6 but was never Master of the Company. He put his mark to the discharge of a bond between the Company and Mr [Raphe] Bettes (23 December 1596). Stanley was allowed to pay off his contribution to the Irish assessment in instalments (4 November 1612 & 25 January 1612/13). Fines were only incurred: for bad language, which he exchanged with Burton [possibly Robert] (4 November 1581); and an unspecified offence (9 December 1586). On 13 January 1614/15 Stanley’s name was added to the list of those receiving benevolence and he was last recorded as an Assistant in the Quarterage Accounts for 1616. Widow Stanley continued to operate the business until she was herself in receipt of benevolence (25 January 1620/21).

STANLEY, John (fl. 1611-12)

A plasterer employed in the Royal Works on task-work at the Tower of London in 1611-12, plastering the walls and ceilings of the dining room of the Earl of Northumberland’s servants at 3d per yard; and for mortaring the brick wall and chimney there at 11d per yard. [41] {John Stanley may well have been a bricklayer by trade, rather than a plasterer.)

STANYAN (STANEAN, STANIAN, STANION, STANYON), Edward (1581-1632/3)

A Plasterer who was baptised at Nassington, Northamptonshire on 17 September 1581, the son of Joan and Nicholas Stanyan. [42] He was presented by Nicholas Henshawe for 7 years and 1 year as a journeyman, his father designated as a tailor (23 February 1598/9). Stanyan was turned over to John Pritchard (18 September 1601), with whom he worked for the Merchant Taylors’ Company between 1601 and 1603. In 1601 he worked just two days when Pritchard was ‘whiting the seeling of the long gallery’; in October 1602 they were ‘new whiting the hall’ and ‘paynting of the gates & the corte’; and in 1603 they were working in the withdrawing or Inner Chamber. Although he was still an apprentice, Stanyan, like all the plasterers employed under Pritchard, was paid at the rate of 18d per day. [43] On 7 March 1605/6 Stanyan paid the fine of 3s 4d on his admission to the freedom of the Company and opted to pay an additional £3 to avoid serving one year as a journeyman. He paid a first instalment of £2, the remainder to be paid at Michaelmas 1606. A silver gilt spoon was donated by him (25 July 1606) but he was tardy in completing the outstanding payment to avoid journeymanship. A memorandum of 10 July 1607 ordered that he pay two further instalments of 10s each on St Bartholomew Tide and the month following to clear the debt. Stanyan continued to prove a recalcitrant member of the Company and was one of the ‘young men’ who took their complaints to the Court of Aldermen. The Company’s Court minutes recorded the progress of the negotiations, which included taking counsel about Stanyan before going to the Court of Aldermen (8 & 13 October, 6 November 1607). Between October 1607 and January 1607/8, committees were appointed by the Aldermen to try to end the dispute and on 18 February 1607/8 it was recorded that a written report (dated 16 February 1607/8) upheld their complaints made against the officers of the Company. [44] No less than eleven clauses addressed the grievances of the junior members of the Company, one of which seems to have a particular bearing on Stanyan’s subsequent career: young men were only to be pressed for the King’s Works as necessity required, and without malice, favour or reward, everyone ‘in their turns indifferentlye’. Despite his extraordinary gifts as a decorative plasterer, Stanyan never carried out task-work in the Royal Works and found patronage in the City as often as at Court. Stanyan was fined for refusing beadleship (1 July 1608) but entered the Livery in 1616. He did not serve as Junior Warden until 1626-7 (11 September 1626) but was fined £8 for not holding his warden’s dinner according to custom (29 September 1626). Absence also incurred fines (20 February 1626/7 & on Search Day 30 April 1628). When John Allen I surrendered the post of City Plasterer on 22 May 1627, Stanyan was admitted in his stead. [45] On 9 September 1628 it was recorded that ‘upon the humble petition of Edward Stanyan, City Plasterer, for his better encouragement, is granted the same fee and livery out of the Chamber of London as is allowed to the City Bricklayer and their fellow workmen’. [46] Upon Stanyan’s further humble petition the reversion of the post of City Plasterer was granted to his son Abraham on 26 August 1630 and Edward surrendered the post to him. [47] He was elected Senior Warden for 1630-31 (13 September 1630) and was one of the signatories to the agreement for raising funds for rebuilding the Company’s house in Wood Street (23 April 1631). 

Several of those apprenticed to Stanyan came from the same part of the country as himself: William Willingham was ‘sett over unto him’ immediately after presentation by Hugh Capp (29 July 1608). (A child of this name was baptised at Nassington on 7 June 1590.) Stanyan was fined for allowing Willingham his freedom one year early (31 October 1615). James Avis was freed as the apprentice of Stanyan without any previous record of his indenture; and George Billington, son of a Nassington husbandman, was presented for 8 years on the same day (23 May 1619). Edward’s son Abraham was apprenticed to his father for 7 years (2 May 1622; he was freed by patrimony on 24 April 1630). Stanyan had also failed to present his next apprentice and it was subsequently agreed by the Court that Stanyan ‘shall enioy and keepe his apprentice Joseph Kinsman according to his Indenture paying onely his charge of bynding according to the custome of this howse 5s 6d which hee did accordingly’ (3 July 1626); when Kinsman was freed Stanyan was fined for not enrolling his apprentice (8 November 1628). Jeremy Beadles, son of a Bedfordshire tanner, was presented for 7 years (8 November 1627); followed by John Goodyear from Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, for 8 years (23 April 1628; freed 29 April 1636); Nicholas Cooke, son of a Berkshire cook, for 9 years (7 May 1630; presented again by Henry Coles on 26 May 1631 and paid arrearage of quarterage on 14 October 1639).  Richard Curtis, son of a Northamptonshire mason and apprentice of John Allen II, was turned over to Stanyan (25 January 1630/1; freed 17 March 1634/5).  

It is very uncommon in this period for the decorative plasterwork that survives to be documented as the work of a particular plasterer. Edward Stanyan is a notable exception as the majority of his work at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, is still in situ. This has allowed further undocumented examples to be attributed to him. [48] However, it has always to be borne in mind that a highly-skilled plasterer like Stanyan would have trained several apprentices to work in his own style, which they would probably have adopted once they were working for themselves. Stanyan’s patron at Blickling Hall was Sir Henry Hobart, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. [49] Stanyan was to work under the surveyor Robert Lyming: but his sense of his own talent is indicated by the alteration made to his initial contract of 1620, which stated that the ‘plottes’ (deisgns) for the plasterwork were to ‘drawne’ by Lyming. This was changed to ‘directed’ by Lyming; evidently Stanyan was capable of drawing his own ‘plottes’ and wanted no more than direction from the surveyor. The building accounts are not complete nor have all Stanyan’s ceilings survived; but it would seem that Blickling once contained no less than eleven ceilings that were the work of his team. The long gallery ceiling is spectacular – a tour de force of Jacobean plasterwork at its most elaborate. A complex design laid out in enriched ribs is further enhanced by overall strapwork, with Hobart heraldry, the Five Senses and emblems from Henry Peacham’s Minerva Britanna filling the remaining spaces.

Detail of the long gallery ceiling at Blickling Hall, Norfolk

Detail of the long gallery ceiling at Blickling Hall, Norfolk.

Just as impressive was the highly original ceiling of the great chamber.

Detail of the great chamber ceiling at Blickling Hall, Norfolk.

Detail of the great chamber ceiling at Blickling Hall, Norfolk.

While engaged on this extensive commission in the early 1620s, Stanyan was also employed at nearby Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, where Thomas Windham was building a new house. In May 1623 Stanyan received the final payment towards the total cost of £56 7s 0d but not a trace of this decorative work survived the remodelling of the house in the later 17th century. [50] Remaining in Norfolk, Stanyan was engaged between 1624 and 1626 at Hunstanton Hall, another house being rebuilt in the 1620s. A payment to Stanyan of £25 was recorded in the Account Book of Lady Alice le Strange for a ‘Chimbney piece’, probably with a plaster overmantel, but that, too, has disappeared. [51] A ceiling at Heydon Hall, Norfolk, has such close similarities with plasterwork at Blickling that one is tempted to attribute it to Stanyan but there is no record of its date. (Another ceiling in the house is clearly a pastiche of the 19th or 20th centuries and it may be that this ceiling decoration has been made up with elements copied from Blickling.)

Detail of a ceiling at Heydon Hall, Norfolk

From Norfolk Stanyan appears to have moved across country to his home county of Northamptonshire, where the plasterwork of the mid-1620s at Apethorpe Hall bears all the hallmarks of his style. [52]

Detail of the ceiling of the great chamber, Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire (c 1625)

Detail of the ceiling of the great chamber, Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire (c 1625).

Later in the decade Stanyan and his team appear to have been at work for a City client, Sir Nicholas Rainton, a London merchant who built himself an out-of-town residence at Forty Hall, Enfield, Middlesex,  in 1629. The decorative plasterwork was almost certainly provided by the Stanyan workshop as so many motifs and small enrichments can be traced back to the houses already discussed.

Forty Hall, Enfield, Middlesex, ceiling above the staircase (c 1630)

Forty Hall, Enfield, Middlesex, ceiling above the staircase (c 1630).

Similarly, there seem to be strong arguments for attributing two Jacobean ceilings at Chilham Castle, Kent, to Stanyan. The house was built by Sir Dudley Digges, a prominent City merchant and lawyer, in c 1615 and these ceilings may represent Stanyan’s earliest surviving work.

Chilham Castle, Kent, part of the Red Bedroom ceiling (c 1615)

Chilham Castle, Kent, part of the Red Bedroom ceiling (c 1615).

A record of Stanyan’s marriages does not appear to have survived, nor of the births of all his children. Rachell Stanyan was baptised on 28 December 1609 at St Botolph without Aldgate as the daughter of Edward Stanyan in East Smithfield. [53] On 4 February 1629/30 the Company laid out 12s ‘att Mr Stannyons wives buriall more than were allowed by him’. Stanyan attended his last Court meeting as an Assistant on 12 September 1631. Stanyan died intestate and must already have remarried as his widow Mary was granted administration of his estate in January 1632/3. [54] The Company spent £1 5s 10d at Mr Stanyan’s burial (25 January 1632/3).

STEPHEN, John (fl. 1607)

A plasterer who was among the large group who were ‘beautifying’ the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in readiness for a royal visit on Election Day in 1607. [55]

STEPHENS (STEEVENS, STEVENS), John (fl. 1620-58)

A Plasterer, son of a Warwickshire miller, presented by Richard Terry (11 June 1612), who paid the fines for his abling (25 July 1620) and beadleship (25 January 1625/6). His first apprentice was John Moore, son of a Warwickshire glover, for 8 years (22 May 1626; freed 18 June 1634). Stephens put his mark to the agreement to raise money from Company members to purchase properties adjacent to the King’s Head, following the fire there (21 February 1630/31) and made an additonal free gift to the Company, presumably for the same purpose (6 November 1631). When Moore was freed, Stephens took as his next apprentice William Jackson, son of a Lancashire husbandman, for 9 years (25 July 1634); followed by Robert, son of Richard Collins, Plasterer, deceased, for 7 years (4 August 1637; turned over to his mother, Anne on 14 March 1637/8 and freed 11 June 1646); Daniel Spurling, son of a Middlesex basketmaker, for 7 years (11 June 1646; freed 1 July 1653); Robert Goulston, son of a Hertfordshire husbandman, for 8 years (10 March 1657/8). Stephens did not survive to be listed in the volume of Quarterage Accounts that resumes in 1661.

STEPHENSON (STEVENSON), Francis (fl. 1613 -59)

A plasterer who carried out work at the Church of St Saviour, Southwark. On 30 November 1613 he was paid 12s for ‘laths, lime, hair, nails, and several days’ work for your men, mending holes that the masons broke’. [56] On 16 December 1656 Stephenson made his will, describing himself as a plasterer and still resident in the parish of St Saviour, Southwark. Apart from twelve pence pieces left to each of his two daughters, the residue of the estate, including ready money, goods, household stuff, linen and woollen apparel, was to go to his wife and executrix, Elizabeth. The will was proved on 7 September 1659. [57]

STEPHENSON, George (fl. 1613-27)

A Plasterer who was freed by patrimony as the son of Richard Stephenson (30 July 1613). George had already been working with his father for Robert Cecil at Salisbury House from January-April 1608. George worked for 26 days on whiting the great chamber, withdrawing chamber, library, stairs and other rooms at 20d per day. In June and July 1608 plasterers were working under Richard Dungan on the seat in the garden and the plaster statuary there. For the 7 days he was employed, George was paid 11s 8d. [58] George paid his beadleship fine (29 May 1617) and presented an apprentice, Robert Barnwell, son of a Huntingdonshire clerk, for 8 years (6 August 1619). He was among the group deputed to meet with the Painter Stainers’ Company to try to come to an agreement about the division of labour between them (25 August 1619). George’s name last appeared in the Court Minute Book when he paid the assessment due on 13 March 1626/7 and his Widow was listed in the Quarterage Accounts for 1626.

STEPHENSON (STEVENSON), John (fl. 1613-49)

A Plasterer of this name, son of a Staffordshire yeoman, was presented by Nicholas Henshawe (5 May 1603). It is just possible that he had been unofficially turned over and was the same apprentice presented by Robert Whiting, who was fined for keeping his apprentice unbound (11 April 1606). There are other examples of the same young man being presented twice by different masters (see Robert Martin in this entry below); but no details of Whiting’s apprentice are supplied and the name is not sufficiently uncommon to allow for identification. Stephenson paid his fines for abling and freedom on the same day that Whiting was fined again for not enrolling his apprentice (29 April 1613). His beadleship fine followed (26 August 1614). On 23 May 1619 Stephenson was committed and the Company had to pay expenses arising from his case (23 May 1619). Stephenson was admitted to the Livery (5 September 1621) and stood unsuccessfully at his first attempt in the election for Junior Warden (13 September 1630). The Company paid for a caveat against him (16 November 1630) and he was warned before the Lord Mayor (9 September 1631) but the cause was not specified on either occasion. Despite this, he was elected to serve as Junior Warden for 1631-2 (12 September 1631). On 6 November 1631 he made a free gift to the Company although the following entry reveals that ‘Mr Warden Stephenson was fined for misdemeanours and arguing with the Master and Assistants at the Court meeting’. The fine for abusing Assistant Whiting was set at 10s (27 January 1631/2). Stephenson nevertheless paid for the expenses incurred at the ‘Corner howse at Coleman streete when Mr [Henry] Hurlston was chosen Warden’ (25 July 1632). Stephenson was not elected Senior Warden for 1633-4 (9 September 1633), for 1634-5 (15 September 1634) nor for 1635-5 (14 September 1635) but was finally chosen for the post on 12 September 1636. A memorandum of 1 February 1637/8 recorded that ‘Mr Stephenson had presented his apprentice Edward Stratton to be freed, swearing he had served his full term’. This was false and as Stratton had also committed fornication it was decided that he should serve his full term before being freed. Mr Stephenson only handed over the remainder of the money he had held as Warden on 6 December 1638. Mr Baptist Sutton was paid for ‘writing under the kings Armes in the Hall, the guift of John Stephenson’ (30 November 1648). 

Fines were incurred by Stephenson for: bad work at St Mary Axe and for not serving one year as a journeyman (23 April 1618); bad work in the Old Change, at St Benet’s Paul’s Wharf and at Newington (27 November 1618); for very insufficient work (20 July 1622); bad work (4 September 1623); absence (20 November 1628, 7 May 1630, 26 May 1630); bad work at Captain Kirke (9 May 1632); lateness (29 November 1632); bad work (5 February 1634/5); for attending the Court meeting in a coloured shirt (8 March 1635/6); lateness (2 February 1636/7). During his long career Stephenson presented numerous apprentices: John Dowthwaite, son of a Cumberland tailor, for 8 years (23 April 1618; freed 25 July 1626); Robert Martin, son of a Middlesex collier, for 8 years (11 September 1626; presented again by Henry Chippinge on 23 April 1627 and freed 23 April 1634); John Mallett, son of a Worcestershire tailor, for 7 years (10 April 1627); Thomas Davis, son of a Montgomeryshire husbandman, for 7 years); Henry Smart, son of a Durham mason, for 8 years (20 November 1628; freed 4 February 1635/6 when Stephenson was fined for freeing him early); Edward Stratton, son of a Berkshire husbandman, for 7 years (9 December 1631; freed and fined for being freed before his time on 28 May 1638, despite the ruling of 1 February 1637/8 noted above); Samuel Stephenson, son of a Northumberland clerk, for 7 years (4 February 1635/6; freed 15 August 1643); Thomas Douring, son of a Northamptonshire labourer, for 7 years (8 October 1638); George Shipley, son of a Derbyshire weaver, for 7 years (6 December 1638; freed 12 February 1645/6); Timothy Padeon, son of an Essex husbandman, for 7 years (2 December 1641); Anthony Harte, son of an Essex bookbinder, for 8 years (18 May 1646); Peter Durans, son of a Buckinghamshire paviour, for 8 years (25 January 1647/8); his son, John Stephenson, was freed by patrimony (4 August 1649).       

Stephenson made his will on 22 March 1637 ‘being sicke and weake in body’ but must have recovered as the will was not proved until 22 September 1649. [59] His estate was to be divided into three parts, according to the Custom of London. One part to his wife, Elizabeth; one part to be shared by any children living at his death; and the third part to be divided half to his wife and half to the children. His wife was appointed executrix but she, too, died and administration was granted to their son, John Stephenson on 29 September 1649.

STEPHENSON, Richard (fl. 1590-1609/10)

A Plasterer who was apprenticed to Ellis Harrison (30 August 1583) and turned over to William Bottom (13 October 1588). He paid his fines for abling (6 November 1590), followed by beadleship (9 September 1591). When presenting Richard Graves, Stephenson was fined for binding an apprentice without serving one year as a journeyman (3 December 1595). He paid for his pattern on entering the Livery (5 August 1602) and presented his next apprentice, Robert Hickson, son of a Lincolnshire yeoman, for 7 years (19 May 1603); followed by Walter Fenton, son of a Yorkshire turner, for 8 years (4 July 1606). When Stephenson presented Robert Whitehead it was noted that Fenton had departed from his master on 28 May 1607 (8 June 1608). Later that month Fenton returned and was turned over to Mr [Henry] Willis (30 June 1608). Fenton was probably the unnamed apprentice who was turned over again to Mr [Thomas Turner] (6 August 1608). Stephenson was engaged with Robert Garsett as a ‘fretter’ at Syon House between 1604 and 1605. Sadly, their decorative work in five chambers, for which they were paid £43, has not survived. [60] More mundane was the plastering work undertaken at Salisbury House in 1608, where his son George was among those working with him. Between January and April Richard worked for 23 days on whiting the great chamber, withdrawing chamber, library, stairs and other rooms at 20d per day. In June and July 1608 the plasterers were working under Richard Dungan on the seat in the garden and the plaster statuary there. For the 7 days he was employed, Stephenson was paid 11s 8d. [61] In the Quarterage Accounts Stephenson was replaced by Widow Stephenson for 1610 and 1611; and on 31 January 1611/12 Robert Whitehead was turned over to John Langford, on condition that he paid £3 to Elizabeth and Susanne, the daughters of Richard Stephenson. Richard’s son, George Stephenson, was freed by patrimony after his father’s death (30 July 1613). 

STEPHENSON, William (fl. 1595-6)

A plasterer who was also listed in the accounts of the Royal Works for 1595-6 as a bricklayer and tiler. General plastering and tiling was undertaken at Greenwich; lathing and tiling at Hampton Court; lathing and tiling a roof at St James’s Palace; and general plastering (as a bricklayer) at Whitehall. [62] This was exactly the kind of failure to recognise demarcation lines between the different crafts that the Plasterers’ Company opposed so vigorously.

STERNWOOD, James (fl. 1574-5)

A Plasterer who paid his abling and admission fines on 14 July 1574. He was fined for bad work (17 June 1575) and for ‘his man’s Bribing of heare [hair?] money’ (21 October 1575), after which date his name disappears from the Company records.

STOREY (STORER STORYE), Robert (fl. 1597-1611)

A Plasterer apprenticed to Richard Johnson (11 October 1590) who paid his abling fine on 13 October 1597. He was fined for ill work in ‘Canninge streete’ (18 February 1601/2) and for keeping a boy unbound for six months, when he presented Richard Backhouse, son of a Shropshire carpenter, for 7 years (13 October 1602). Ill work in Sherborne Lane and St Clement’s Lane incurred a further fine (5 May 1606). John Trowell was apprenticed to him for 8 years (26 February 1606/7). Storey paid the assessment of 2s 6d required of the Yeomanry to cover the costs of a Company lawsuit in Chancery in connection with their corner house in Wood Street (2 February 1608/9). In the Quarterage Accounts for 1611 Storey is noted as ‘dead’, to be replaced by Widow Storey for 1612-13, when her name was annotated ‘now married’.

STREET (STREATE, STRETE), Andrew (fl. 1572-95)

A Plasterer who paid his beadleship fine on 25 July 1572. Hugh Linacre was presented by him (8 November 1577), followed by Olwyn Evans (24 November 1581) and Walter Webster (28 July 1592). When the Clothworkers’ Company was building a new parlour from April 1594-July 1595, Andrew Street was employed for 4 days in the week beginning 13 June 1595, earning 5s 4d. [63] It is apparent from the will of John Street, that Andrew was his son.

STREET (STREATE, STRETT), John (fl. 1531; died 1570)

A Plasterer who is listed in the 19th-century transcription of some of the Company’s records for 1522-25. He was the son of a Suffolk scissor maker, apprenticed to John Hutton for 7 years. [64]

In the 1530s John Street was employed extensively as part of the large team of plasterers in the Royal Works, where he earned 7d or 8d per day. Working in the new gallery at Whitehall in November 1531 he earned 12s 10d for 22 days’ work. [65] At Greenwich in March-April 1533 he was helping to colour the exterior timber work of parts of the palace with yellow ochre. [66] Preparations for the Queen’s coronation in 1532-3 involved a great deal of whitewashing and colouring at the Palace of Westminster where Street was among those employed. [67] Greenwich Palace was undergoing various alterations as partitions were moved and three chambers were converted to become the hawk mews, amongst other routine plastering, for which Street was paid at 8d per day in October-November 1533. [68] He was also working at Richmond, lathing and plastering various kitchen offices and lodgings in May – June 1534, for which he received 14s. [69]

Henry VIII’s frenzied building campaign at Hampton Court meant that Street, along with many others, was working at the palace for numerous spells between 1533 and 1538. [70] Such was the pressure of work that the men had sometimes to keep working in their ‘hour times and drinking times’. In February-March 1537 Street returned to Greenwich to work on the royal lodgings, including lathing and plastering the ceiling of the King’s privy chamber ‘for the Joiners to set their new battens upon’. Street’s pay was down to 7d per day again and he earned 8s 2d for 14 days’ work. [71]

Street evidently made his way up the Company hierarchy as he was named as the Junior Warden in a repertory of the Court of Alderman dated 1558-60. [72] He was ordered to bring the Company’s book of Ordinances to Mr Alderman Bowes for inspection, in connection with Richard Tyffyn’s irregular dealings with his apprentices; and Street was thereafter ordered to find new masters for those apprentices. When Francis Gaywood made his will on 13 September 1565, John Street of St Andrew Undershaft, plasterer, was to act as one of the overseers of the will and to receive 5s for doing so. [73] Street made his own will on 26 May 1570, leaving the tenement in which he was living to his wife, Rose, provided she remained a single window. After her death it was to go to his son Thomas and his heirs, or his son Andrew and his heirs. Their older brother Robert had already been assisted and was ‘of abylitye’, so the goods and chattels were to be divided between Rose and the two younger sons. Robert was left a black taffeta doublet and a jacket of unwatered camlet, ‘garded’ with velvet. Rose was the residuary legatee and executrix, charged with raising Thomas, unless she remarried, when the task would fall on Robert, who was one of the overseers of the will, proved on 20 September 1570. [74]

SUTTON, Thomas (fl. 1581)

A Plasterer whose name only appears once in the Court Minute Book, when he paid arrearage of quarterage on 10 February 1580/1.

SYMONDS, John (fl. 1547-97)

John Symonds was not primarily a plasterer. According to John Summerson, he was apprenticed to Lewis Stockett, Surveyor of the Royal Works, who was a mason but became Master of the Joiners’ Company when it was founded in 1571. [75] In his article Summerson concludes that Stockett was probably a carver in stone and wood; and Symonds, also a member of the Joiners’ Company, was equally capable of carving, among his many other skills. Both Stockett and Symonds were involved as joiners in creating the Mount for the coronation of Edward VI in 1547. [76] After varied employment in the Royal Works for some years, Summerson noted a gap in his service from 1567-71. However, Mark Girouard has found that Symonds was working at Longleat during this period, as a mason in June 1568 and as a plasterer (with Christopher Manly) in August 1569. [77] From 1575-8 the Royal Works’ accounts record extensive building and repair works at Okinge [Woking], including two new galleries. Symonds seems to have played a supervisory role at the site before work began as he was reimbursed 46s 8d for 20 days travelling at 2s per day with 6s 8d for hire of a horse’. [78] In the Audit Office version of the accounts it was noted that he was paid for his attendance there ‘severall tymes’. [79] Symonds’ background and experience make him a plausible candidate as the originator of an innovation that took place at Windsor Castle in 1582-4. Queen Elizabeth’s new gallery was decorated with a plaster ceiling, the earliest dated example of a design using enriched ribs. [80] The accounts are in Latin and do not name the plasterer nor could the clerk find a Latin equivalent for ‘fretting woorke’. [81] Although executed in lime plaster, carved timber moulds would have been required to produce the repetitive rib enrichment. London plasterers were already reliant on the skills of joiners and woodcarvers to produce repetitive decorative motifs for plaster ceilings and friezes, so this extension of their co-operation would have caused no difficulties. Architectural drawing was one of Symonds’ skills and it was this talent that brought him into contact with the Cecil family. Summerson conjectured that ‘one may suspect that Lord Burghley stretched a point in order to find a suitable reward for his own architect’ when Symonds was appointed as Master Plasterer in the Royal Works in 1585 (jointly with Thomas Kellie). [82] However, if Symonds was the instigator of this novel ceiling decoration, the appointment may have been a reward in recognition of his contribution to the plasterwork at Windsor and not just the sinecure it appears. Symonds continued to hold the office until his death in 1597. He was never paid for plastering task-work of any kind, either plain or decorative, but some routine task-work was carried out by John Allen I (alongside several London Plasterers). Allen had been Symonds’ servant/apprentice and was at that time also a member of the Joiners’ Company, although he later made the transition to the Plasterers’ Company, itself a very rare occurrence.

 

[1] LMA CLC/L/MD/D/003/MS 34048/309.

[2] HHA: Bills 28.

[3] LMA CLC/L/MD/D/003/MS 34048/309.

[4] Essex CRO: D/DP A18-22, transcribed by Professor Malcolm Airs;  J C Ward & K Marshall, Old Thorndon Hall, Essex Record Office Publications, 61, Chelmsford (1972).

[5] LMA CLC/L/MD/G/243/MS 34348.

[6] TNA E 351/3245.

[7] TNA PROB 11/156.

[8] LMA DL/AL/C/001/MS 09050/006. The original will does not survive.

[9] TNA E 101/474/24 & 26.

[10] LMA CLC/429/MS 02192.

[11] TNA E 36/252, f. 470.

[12] LMA DL/C/B/004/MS 09171/12/7r.

[13] C Welch (translator & ed), Register of Freemen of the City of London in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, London (1908), for the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, pp. 50, 98, 107.

[14] LMA CLC/429/MS 03555/003/1, 2, 3, 7.

[15] Drapers’ Company, Renter Wardens’ Accounts: RA5/5-6.

[16] LMA DL/C/B/004/MS 09171/16, f. 268.

[17] LMA ACC 1876/AC/3/9.2. Lady Quarter Rent Book 1628.

[18] LMA DL/C/B/004/MS 09171/020, f. 334.

[19] LMA ACC/1876/F/09/48.

[20] LMA CLC/L/MD/003/MS 34048/299/008.

[21] HHA: Bills 28.

[22] BL MSS Harleian 152/3 & 642/9.

[23] TNA L.C. 2/4(6).

[24] LMA COL/CA/01/034, f. 161.

[25] Grays’ Inn Ledger A, f. 26.

[26] This must be a clerk’s error as Gurrey’s will was proved in 1677.

[27] The Clothworkers’ Company: Quarter and Renter Wardens’ Accounts: CL/D/5/3.

[28] LMA CLC/L/SE/D/007/MS 30727/004.

[29] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson A.195.C., f. 175r.

[30] LMA DC/CB/05/MS 09172/038, will no. 127.

[31] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson A.195.C., f. 212v.

[32] Stephen Freeth, ‘The Tower Hill Almshouses of the Merchant Taylors’ Company’, London Topographical Record, XXX (2010), p. 25

[33] TNA PROB 11/189.

[34] The Clothworkers’ Company: Quarter and Renter Wardens’ Accounts: CL/D/5/2.

[35] Bodleiean Library MS Rawlinson S.195.C., ff. 7r, 30r and 42v.

[36] LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS 02968/002.

[37] LMA DL/C/B/001/MS 09168/017, f. 106v.

[38] TNA E 351/3244.

[39] The Clothworkers’ Company: Quarter and Renter Wardens’ Accounts: CL/D/5/2.

[40] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson A.195.C., f. 85r.

[41] TNA AO 1/2420/42.

[42] Northampton County Record Office: Nassington 217P/1, Register of christenings at Nassington since 1560.

[43] LMA CLC/L/MD/003/MS 34048/299/008 & MS 34348/300/008.

[44] LMA COL/CA/01/031, ff. 99v, 125, 154, 164v-166v.

[45] LMA COL/CA/01/048, f. 222. Stanyan’s first name is incorrectly given as Richard but this is amended in later entries.

[46] LMA COL/CA/01/046, f. 273.

[47] LMA COL/CA/01/048, f. 320.

[48] www.clairegapper.info,: Chapter VI: Edward Stanyon and the dominant style of the 1620s.

[49] C Stanley-Millson and J Newman, ‘Blickling Hall: The building of a Jacobean mansion’, Architectural History, 29 (1986), pp. 3-35.

[50] Norfolk Count Record Office: WKC 5/420, 464X. Account Book of Thomas Wihdham, begun 12 December 1621.

[51] Norfolk Count Record Office: LEST P7.

[52] Claire Gapper, ‘The Plaster Decoration of the State Apartment at Apethorpe Hall’, English Heritage Historical Review, 3 (2008), pp. 86-101.

[53] LMA P69/BOT2/A/002/MS 09220/001, f. 129.

[54] LMA DL/C/B/001/MS 09168/018, f. 188.

[55] LMA CLC/L/MD/003/MS 34048/300/009.

[56] LMA P92/SAV/35-145. Bills for work and repairs done in the Church 1578-1652.

[57] TNA PROB 11/295.

[58] HHA: Bills 28.

[59] TNA PROB 11/209.

[60] The Northumberland Estates: U.I.13, ‘A booke of Disbursementes for workes done att Sion, March 1604 - March 1605’, p.45.

[61] HHA: Bills 28.

[62] TNA AO 1/2415/25.

[63] The Clothworkers’ Company: Quarter and Renter Wardens’ Accounts: CL/D/5/3.

[64] LMA CLC/429/MS 02192. Extracts from the Court Minute Book of the Plasterers’ Company, 1522-25.

[65] TNA E 36/252, f. 532.

[66] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.775, f. 56v.

[67] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.775, ff. 177 & 199.

[68] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.776, f. 11v.

[69] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.776, f. 121r & v.

[70] TNA E 36/237-40, 242-4, passim.

[71] Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.780, f. 24v.

[72] LMA COL/CA/01/016, f. 484.

[73] LMA DL/AL/C/003/MS 09051/003, f. 172.

[74] LMA DL/C/B/004/MS 09171/016.

[75] J Summerson, ‘Three Elizabethan Architects’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (1957), pp. 209-25.

[76] A Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Revels at Court in the time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary, Louvain (1914), p. 257. We are indebted to Dr Mark Girouard for this reference.

[77] Longleat House Archives: Building Accounts, 1568-9, Box LXVIII, Book 59.

[78] TNA E 351/3211.

[79] TNA AO 1/2412/8.

[80] A narrow strip of the ceiling is visible in the Frontispiece to J Britton, The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, Vol. II, London (1809). The ceiling was reproduced in gypsum plaster when the gallery was converted into a library for William IV and the ceiling height raised in 1832.

[81] TNA AO 1/2477/258.

[82] HKW III, p. 410.

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