If, as seems likely, it was Henry Barton, the distinguished London alderman, who obtained custody of the manor of Barton (now Barton Hartshorn), Buckinghamshire, in April 1421, then his ancestry can be traced back to the 12th century. Land elsewhere in the area had passed into the hands of his nephew and heir, Thomas Barton, by 1437, so there is a strong possibility that he came from a local family which had lived in Barton for over 200 years. The London goldsmith, Richard Barton (d. 1413) was perhaps one of his kinsmen; and he may well have been related to John Barton I, the Buckinghamshire lawyer who became recorder of London in 1415. Such connexions would in part explain why he and his brother, Ralph, chose to set up business in the City, where they both acquired great wealth and influence.
Barton began his career as an official in the household of Queen Anne, consort of Richard II, with a life annuity of £5 charged upon the manor of Isleworth, Middlesex. On her death in 1394, Richard gave instructions that the annuity should still be paid — as did Henry IV in the period immediately following his coronation. The sudden change of ruling dynasty worked to Barton’s advantage, since he had previously been employed as a skinner by John of Gaunt, the new King’s father, and was now shown every mark of royal favour. He was one of the yeomen of the chamber who remained in attendance upon Richard II’s widow, Isabel, when Henry IV set out on his Scottish expedition of 1400; and in January 1405 he became the first skinner to be retained officially on the staff of the Wardrobe, partly in recognition of his services to the house of Lancaster. He wore the livery of a serjeant of the Wardrobe and drew a wage of 1s. a day for the next 28 years. The post was no sinecure: besides supervising the preparation of furs to be worn by members of the Household he had also to arrange for the selection, packaging and transport of the King’s own apparel.
Rather less is known about Barton’s other business affairs and connexions. In July 1396 he was suing one William Brewer, who had allegedly left his service before the agreed term. Two years later we find him acting as a surety in Chancery, a service which he appears to have performed only once more during his lifetime. He again went to law in March 1405, this time because of an assault upon either his person or property by six Londoners, but he was himself being sued by two of his fellow citizens in November 1412. He had dealings in Northamptonshire: in April 1408, for example, Thomas Wyssynden, esquire, of Brackley Hatch, bound himself in £10 to the skinner and his wife, and in June 1421 John Folkesworth, another Northamptonshire man, joined with Thomas Dalby of Lincolnshire in acknowledging a debt of £100 which Barton duly collected.
Although it is now impossible to determine the full extent of Barton’s holdings in London, he was clearly one of the city’s major property owners, with an annual rental of £21 as early as 1412. The handsome bequest of rents and tenements which he left to the Skinners’ guild of Corpus Christi for the support of its deserving poor was said to be worth almost £35 a year in 1491 (at a rather generous estimate), and the property settled by him upon his widow must have accounted for at least a third of the landed income of £50 a year which she enjoyed in 1436.
Sir Henry Inglose
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Despite his commitments in the royal household and the demands made upon him as a rentier, Barton found time to pursue a long and active civic career, being one of the few Londoners who was rich enough to hold the office of mayor twice during the early 15th century. Between them, he and his brother, Ralph (who was alderman of Farringdon Ward Without from 1416 to 1430, and sheriff of London in 1418), possessed great authority in the City. Henry Barton was called upon to perform his first official duty in October 1402, when he was named, but not chosen to serve, as a juror from Cordwainer Street Ward at the husting court. He became sheriff three years later, and held aldermanic rank continuously from April 1406 until his death. During his first mayoralty he was empowered (in March 1417) to buy large quantities of grain with which to provision the King’s ships and all the soldiers who had gathered in London ready for the expedition to France. While mayor for a second term, he laid one of the foundation stones of the new church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, which was begun in May 1429; and at about this time he gave a large silver thurible to St. Paul’s cathedral for censing in mayoral processions. The introduction of a scheme for proper street lighting in the city is generally attributed to Barton, although there is no direct evidence for this.
Barton died between 11 Apr. and 18 June 1435, and was buried in the charnel house at St. Paul’s, where he and two other skinners (one of whom was named Robert Barton) lay ‘intombed with their images of alabaster over them, grated or coped about with iron’. Since he left no children, Barton was able to set aside a major part of his property and an impressive collection of plate for pious and charitable uses. Plans for a chapel at the Guildhall were still under discussion when he died, and there can be little doubt that his legacy of vestments, linen and plate provided the real incentive for the project to be put into effect. Notwithstanding these lavish bequests, his widow, Joan, remained a wealthy woman. On her death in the autumn of 1437, she herself left over £159 to be shared among friends and relatives, while one of her executors was bound in 1,000 marks for the proper performance of his duties.