GREGG, John

Of unknown origins, Gregg became one of the wealthiest and most influential merchants of Hull in the early fifteenth century although, apart from his will, the evidence relating to him is surprisingly slight. He should probably be identified with the individual of that name who exported cloth and imported wax through the port there in 1391-2, but he did not purchase the freedom of the town until 1398.4 E122/52/22; 59/23; BRE 1, p. 241. During 1400 he exported at least six shipments of wool, and in the following year he imported various merchandise valued at £30 3s. 10d.5 E122/60/2; 160/1. In September 1408 he was among a group of feoffees who conveyed a tenement in Hull Street to John Marfleet, and in the spring of 1414 he arbitrated in a dispute between William Hedon and Thomas Swan of Beverley over another tenement in the town.6 BRE 1, pp. 164, 212. At least seven apprentices of his became freemen of Hull between 1410 and 1432; among them were Ralph Forne, a future mayor, and Stephen Gildhous, later sheriff.7 Ibid. 246, 252, 256, 258; J. Kermode, ‘Merchants of York, Hull and Beverley’ (Sheffield Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1990), 339. While it is impossible to prove that Gregg played a role in municipal administration before becoming mayor in September 1421, it is likely that he had previously served as a bailiff or chamberlain. The only other office he is known to have held is that of auditor of the chamberlains’ accounts and there is no evidence of his activities in the Commons in any of his Parliaments.

It is possible that a desire to escape the consequences of litigation prompted Gregg to make a couple of settlements in February 1431. First, he assigned a property in Marketgate and £80 in cash to his daughter, Agnes; secondly, he gifted goods and chattels to Ralph Forne, subsequently one of his executors.8 BRE 1, p. 263. In October 1432, however, a few months after the dissolution of his last Parliament, he, John Aldwick* and others were outlawed in Middlesex for failing to pay specified sums to the Crown, which in the following December commissioned James Strangeways, j.c.p., to value their goods and chattels in Yorkshire. Gregg faced further difficulties three years later, when he, Robert Kirkton*, John Grimsby* and Aldwick were among those facing proceedings in the court of King’s bench over debts they had contracted with the Crown, again in Middlesex: the King claimed £30 from both Grimsby and Kirkton and 100s. from each of their associates. They subsequently failed to appear at Westminster, so risking outlawry, but there is no further record of the suit in the plea rolls. Not recorded are the circumstances leading to either these or the perhaps related earlier proceedings, although it is possible that they were connected with the non-payment of customs.9 E159/209, commissiones Mich. rot. 1d; KB27/698, rex rot. 16.

In September 1437, shortly before his death, Gregg purchased three tenements in Market Street from the feoffees of John Grimsby. Grimsby had died intestate earlier that year but he may have intended that these holdings, along with others in the town obtained by Gregg, should endow a chantry. It is far from clear that Gregg acquired these properties in order to fulfil the wishes of his fellow merchant, since he did not explicitly mention Grimsby in his will.10 Cal. Hull Deeds ed. Stanewell, D316, 317. Gregg made his will on 31 Oct. 1437. He asked to be buried in the choir of the chapel of the Holy Trinity at Hull and left 20s. to each of its nine guilds. He also bequeathed money to the churches of Brantingham, Ellerker, St. Mary’s in Hull, and to York Minster, and he left sums to the mendicant orders in his home town and Beverley. His bequests were wide ranging. They included sums he assigned for the repair of roads between Hull and Beverley, Drypool and Bilton, and Hull and Anlaby; the £66 he set aside for distribution among the poor of Beverley and Hull for 15 years after his death; and two marks he left to a guild of the church of St. Bride, Fleet Street, a bequest indicating a familiarity with the city of London. Gregg also made numerous bequests to his servants, entreating his executors to act charitably towards them, and settled his holdings in Hull on his wife, Joan, for life. After her death, this property was to support a chantry, administered by the corporation of the town, for the welfare of his soul and those of Joan and his benefactors thereafter. His daughter does not feature in the will, perhaps because she had predeceased him. Gregg appointed Joan, Ralph Forne, Thomas Merflete, chaplain, and John Harpham as his executors, and he was dead by 4 Dec. 1437 when probate was granted.11 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, ff. 507v-8.

Joan did not long outlive her husband. Her own will of 3 Dec. 1438 closely followed the provisions of his will and reveals her to have been a wealthy woman. She disposed of cash bequests to the value of £240 and set aside £40 for an ostentatious funeral in Gregg’s burial place, the chapel of the Holy Trinity. Among other bequests, she assigned sums to the religious guilds that the MP had remembered in his will, to the poor and towards the repair of roads and the building of a water conduit in Hull. She also left her thirty-second share of a ship, the George, to Gregg’s former apprentice and feoffee, Stephen Gildhous, and William Arnald: whether the lack of a similar bequest in the MP’s will means that he had not possessed a like interest in local vessels is impossible to tell. In fulfillment and augmentation of her husband’s wishes, Joan confirmed that the income of the properties formerly belonging to John Grimsby, along with others in the town once held by the draper, John Bilton, was to support a chantry priest in Holy Trinity chapel, as well as 13 paupers in the Maison Dieu, an almshouse she had built on Old Kirklane. For her executors, she chose the same men appointed by her late husband, along with Gregg’s former apprentice Gildhous, the chaplain John Brig and Thomas Bynham. She was dead by 30 Dec. when her will was proved.12 Ibid. ff. 555v-6v. The Greggs’ chantry was eventually established in October 1445.13 Cal. Hull Deeds, D315, 317, 350, 352; VCH Yorks. (E. Riding), i. 343.