Go To Section
ALDRED, John (c.1545-c.1611), of the Charter House, Hull, Yorks.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Biography Detail
Related Resources
Family and Education
b.c.1545, 1st s. of Thomas Aldred† of Hull by Eleanor, da. and coh. of Ralph Constable. m. Frances, da. of Sir Henry Gates of Samer by Lucy, da. of Charles Knyvet, 5s. 1da. suc. fa. 13 May 1562.
Offices Held
J.p. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1582-1603, again by 1606; commr. to examine customs disputes, Hull and York 1590; member, high commission, northern province 1599; escheator, Yorks. 1600-1.
Biography
Aldred’s grandfather came from East Anglia, and it was his father who settled in Hull as paymaster of works. Both he and Aldred himself made good marriages, and in due course Aldred was put on the commission of the peace and elected to Parliament. In that of 1584-5 he spoke on the bill against idle and vicious living (8 Feb.) and was put on a committee concerning tellers and receivers (10 Mar.). During the Parliament of 1586 he wrote to the mayor and aldermen of Hull about a complaint made by the Scottish ambassador to the Privy Council concerning a ship called the Black Lion, and other difficulties which had arisen between the town and the Scots. In a speech on Cope’s bill, 28 Feb. 1587, he described himself as ‘a poor labourer in the building of the Temple’, which neatly sets him as a puritan. From time to time he was given odd jobs, such as examining, in 1595, a complaint of unjustified dismissal from an ex-gaoler of Beverley, and acting as a kind of immigration official at Hull in 1599. He acquired a certain amount of property in Yorkshire: pasture land in Sutton, a house with lands in Preston, Holderness, and the manor of Sculcoates. In 1604, with four others, he bought eight manors, 200 houses, 100 cottages, 10 mills and further lands. He was involved in one protracted lawsuit when the corporation of Hull sued him in the Exchequer alleging that he was diverting the corporation water supply, which came from a spring three miles away.
Aldred died about 1611.
Glover, Vis. Yorks. 60, 144; C142/133/124; Lansd. 35, f. 132; 71, f. 138; Hull Deeds, ed. Stanewell, 163, 167, 175, 323; HMC Hatfield, ix. 139, 397; York wills 17, f. 142; APC, xxv. 134; D’Ewes, 365; Lansd. 43, anon. jnl. f. 170; Harl. 7188, f. 94; Yorks. Fines (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. v), 181; (vii), 103, 139; (liii), 29.
