HALL, John I

The son of a leading citizen of Worcester, Hall enjoyed a wider-ranging career than his father since, while retaining a connexion with his native city, he also pursued interests in London. He was by no means unique, for just as Worcester attracted rural immigrants, some of its inhabitants would leave and seek to better themselves in the capital.5 A.D. Dyer, City of Worcester in 16th Cent. 188. Presumably of age when he attested the election of the knights of the shire for Worcestershire to the Parliament of 1415, he had become a citizen and grocer of London by 1423.6 Collectanea (Worcs. Historical Soc. 1912), 36-37. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish him from other John Halls of London and it is not known whether he was the John Hall ‘junior’ from the City whom Robert Rodyngton (probably the serjeant of the King’s cellar of that name) retained to accompany him to France in 1417.7 DKR, xliv. 600; C1/11/24; 68/257; 73/81-82. Yet it seems safe to assume that he was the grocer of that name who sued a chapman from Chelmsford in the court of common pleas in the mid 1420s, for failing to pay him £16 for a purchase of ginger, saffron and pepper contracted in the City in 1423.8 CP40/657, rot. 114. There are however no doubts about the identity of the John Hall who was a plaintiff in the same court in another lawsuit of this period. He brought the case in association with his widowed mother Alice, in their capacity as the executors of his late father, Richard. When it came to pleadings in Trinity term 1425, he and Alice alleged that the defendant, William Glym, a clerk from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, had not settled a debt of £18 10s. arising from a bond that he had given the late John Coupere, a drover from Worcester, in London as far back as 1398. They stated that Glym had paid only 10s. of that sum and had neither satisfied Coupere, nor Richard Halle as Coupere’s executor, nor themselves as Richard’s executors of the remaining £18. In his defence, Glym pleaded that Richard had released him from the debt at Coventry in 1415. The parties agreed that the matter should go before a jury, only for Glym to lose the case by default, for not reappearing in court on a given day. Hall and his mother were certainly able to recover at least £6 of the debt, after which they remitted the damages of 20 marks they had originally claimed.9 CP40/658, rot. 263. It is not known whether Coupere was the John Cooper† who sat twice for Worcester in Richard II’s reign.

In spite of becoming a freeman of London, Hall continued to spend a considerable amount of time in his native city. In August 1423 he and his widowed mother released all claim to lands outside its Foregate to John and Richard Baret, but it is not known what interest they might have had in these properties. For the purposes of the subsidy on lands granted by the Parliament of 1431, Hall’s freeholdings at Worcester were valued at 100s. p.a. He himself was one of the jurors when the city’s inhabitants were assessed for this tax in November that year, a role he had already performed for the purposes of an earlier subsidy in 1428. At the end of his life he held two tenements in Eport Street and a croft in Hulton Street.10 Collectanea, 36-37; Feudal Aids, v. 311, 325; PCC 16 Rous.

So far as the evidence goes, Hall was most active in the public affairs of Worcester during the 1430s. In 1433 he and other prominent citizens were party to an agreement between the city and the local cathedral priory, by which the city licensed the monks to pipe water along the city’s ditches and under its walls to the priory, in return for a nominal annual rent of a rose.11 Worcester Chs. 162. In the following year he was elected to the first of his two known terms as bailiff, and then to Parliament immediately after that term had expired. His fellow MP was his erstwhile co-bailiff Henry Newdyk*, who was again his fellow bailiff in 1438-9.

By early 1444, Hall was suing Thomas Benne of Worcester in the common pleas for breaking into a close of his in the city,12 CP40/732, rot. 98d. but there is no evidence of his activities during the remainder of the 1440s and he is next heard of as a testator. Presumably he was residing in London at the end of his life, for it was there that he made his will, dated 19 May 1451 and proved in the following November. He nevertheless styled himself ‘of Worcester’ in the will, which is striking for failing to mention any property or other interests in London. It does however reveal that he was a friend of its then mayor, Nicholas Wyfold, another grocer, and that he was a man of some wealth, a considerable part of which he may have earned in the City. Hall made bequests to the parish church of All Saints at Worcester and provided for a chaplain to sing masses there for three years, for the souls of his parents and of his late wife, another Alice Hall. He also contributed money towards the marriages of 12 poor virgins from that parish and made a gift of cloth and six silver spoons to its rector, Roger Gower. Other beneficiaries of the will included the city’s Dominican and Franciscan friaries, to which he left 60s. and 40s. respectively; the nunnery of Whistones, a Cistercian house just to the north of the city, to which he gave a religious tract (‘de vita contemplacionis’) in English, as well as 8d. to each of its nuns; the city’s Trinity guild, to which he left 20s.; and the priests of the bishop of Worcester’s palace, each of whom was to receive a robe and 4d. Hall also set aside 20s. for repairing a road known as ‘le Slyp’ in the parish of St. Clement’s and 10s. for the bridge known as the ‘Tibrugge’. Nicholas Wyfold and his wife Margaret feature prominently in the will. Hall appointed Wyfold one of his executors and bequeathed the couple items of plate and jewelry. Wyfold did not long survive Hall, for he died in 1456. Margaret Wyfold survived for nearly another 40 years, also outliving her second and third husbands, John Norris* and (Sir) John Howard*. It was by virtue of her last match that she was dowager duchess of Norfolk at her death in 1494.13 CP, ix. 612. More obscure beneficiaries of Hall’s will included the ‘wyredrawer’ William Yerdeley and his wife Alice and Robert Mollesdale, possibly all family connexions. Hall left one of his tenements in Eport Street to Alice and her children and his croft in Hylton Street to Mollesdale and his heirs. The other tenement in Eport Street was reserved for John Powick, to whom he had agreed to sell it, apparently for £18, and who had already paid part of the purchase price. Apart from Wyfold, Hall appointed two other executors, the same Robert Mollesdale and the already mentioned Roger Gower. He left it to his executors, each of whom was to have 20s. for his trouble, to decide where he should be buried, and it is not recorded whether they had his body brought back to Worcester. It would appear that he was not survived by any children since none is mentioned in the will.14 PCC 16 Rous. A namesake (or namesakes) attested the return of the knights of the shire for Worcestershire to the Parliaments of 1453, 1455 and 1478, and in 1468 Hugh Hall of Suckley was appointed to collect a tax in the county, although it is not known whether they were related to the former grocer.15 C219/16/2-3; 17/3; CFR, xx. 228.