GOLDING, Henry I (d.1576), of Little Birch, Essex.

Golding’s half-brother, Sir Thomas, was a commissioner for chantry lands, and twice sheriff of Essex, and his half-sister Margery married John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford. He himself, apparently at one time a servant of Protector Somerset, amassed considerable property in Essex, and appears in the patent rolls as a wine merchant. In 1559 he was living at Great Birch; by his marriage he obtained the manors of Easthorpe and Little Birch, where he was living at the time of his death; and in 1565 he bought lands in Great and Little Clacton, Tendring, Weeley and Thorpe, and the manor of Gidea Hall.

His return for Maldon at a by-election in 1558 and his re-election to the next Parliament can be attributed to his relative the 16th Earl of Oxford, lord lieutenant of Essex. Golding was one of the executors of the Earl’s will, which described him as a ‘trusty servant’. By 1571, when he was returned for Colchester, he was himself of some standing in the county. He suffered from ill health after about 1569, though continuing his duties as a local official, and died in December 1576. By his will, made in March 1575 and proved in February 1577, he left the greater part of his estate to the executor, his brother Arthur. Most of it, however, was mortgaged, having been pledged as security for the debts of a friend. His widow was to enjoy certain lands during her life, and he left bequests to his stepdaughters, his servants and the poor of local parishes. The preamble to the will supports his classification in 1564 as a ‘favourer of religion’.1Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 8, 55; APC, vii. 285; Essex Rev. iv. 239; SP10/9/4; CPR, 1558-60, p. 184; 1566-9, p. 213; 1569-72, p. 293; Morant, Essex, i. 475; ii. 180; PCC 22 Chayre, 8 Daughtry, 11 Populwell; Essex RO, assize files passim; L. T. Golding, An Eliz. Puritan, 71; Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 62.