Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Soame
This family take their name from the village of Soham in Cambridgeshire.

The 2nd son of Thomas Soame of Betley, (Beetley).
● Sir STEPHEN SOAME was born about 1544, and became a successful merchant in London, which enabled him to purchase for £1,000 on 3rd December 1588 the Manor of Brickendon (Brickendonbury) in Hertfordshire from Edmund Allen of Hatfield in Middlesex, plus other estates. He served as Sheriff of London in 1589 ; Master of the Girdlers Company in 1590 ; and was Lord Mayor of London in 1598-99.
He married ANNE daughter of WILLIAM STONE, haberdasher of London, by his wife MERCY daughter of JOHN GRAY of Barley in Hertfordshire. He died aged 75 on 23rd May 1619 and was buried at Little Thurlow in Suffolk. His will pr. 26th January 1620.

Offices Held

Master, Girdlers’ Co. ?1568; alderman, London 26 June 1589, sheriff 1589-90, ld. mayor 1598-9, president, Bethlehem and Bridewell hospitals 1598-9; surveyor-gen. of London hospitals 1609-10, comptroller-gen. 1610-d.2

Biography
Soame came from a minor Norfolk family, established there since the fifteenth century.
He was at first a member of the Girdlers’ Company, but, when he was elected lord mayor he transferred to the Grocers’ Company, to the chagrin of the Girdlers, who removed his arms from their hall. From his early years in London his main interest was probably the cloth trade. In November 1589 the Privy Council wrote on his behalf to the Merchant Adventurers, asking that he should either be admitted to the Company, or be made at least a temporary member for five years, so that he could regain the losses he had suffered in exporting cloth to the Low Countries. As his wealth increased he began moneylending. He was one of the creditors of Sir Walter Leveson and in 1590, was instrumental in having him imprisoned for debt.3

Soame was named to the committee for the assurance of certain manors, 9 Dec. 1601; to that concerned with policies of assurance used amongst merchants (11 Dec.) and to that about prisoners in Ludgate (12 Dec.). He spoke thrice: on St. Bartholomew’s hospital (17 Nov.); on the painters and plasterers of London (12 Dec.) and in support of a bill to give the city power over the liberty of St. Katharine’s (14 Dec.):

Mr. Speaker, I say to you, these privileges are the very sink of sin, the nursery of naughty and lewd people, the harbour of rogues, thieves and beggars, and maintainers of idle persons; for when our shops and houses be robbed, thither they fly for relief and sanctuary, and we cannot help ourselves. In addition, as one of the London Members, he could have sat on the committees to consider the penal laws (2 Nov.), the order of business (3 Nov.), setting watches (7 Nov.), customs regulations (10 Nov.), procedure (11 Nov.), cloth workers (18 Nov.), monopolies (23 Nov.), felt makers (26 Nov.), the local government of London (4 Dec.), cloth (4 Dec.), the relief of Theophilus Adams (5 Dec.), the assize of fuel (7 Dec.), Thames watermen (8 Dec.), iron ordnance (8 Dec.), the maintenance of the navy (9 Dec.), silk weavers (10 Dec.), and printers and printing (17 Dec.).4

By the end of the sixteenth century Soame was principally an Eastland merchant. As lord mayor he was chairman of the first meeting of merchants to discuss the formation of the East India Company; he promised £200 on his own behalf for the first voyage, and a further £400 in conjunction with Richard Carter. With the decline of the Eastland trade in the first decade of the seventeenth century, he transferred his main interests to the Levant. As a cloth exporter looking for new markets he was a leading supporter of Cokayne’s project, which was aimed at breaking the monopoly of the Merchant Adventurers. But, although he was an early adherent, he failed to take up his quota of cloths immediately. He had been allotted 300 cloths, but by September 1616 had bought only 80 of them; he made good his default in the following months by exporting 716 cloths, but by then the project was failing.5

A large part of the profit Soame gained from trade must have been invested in land. At his death in 1619 he had accumulated enough land in the six counties of Cambridge, Essex, Hertford, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk to provide each of his four sons with a landed estate. He chose as his own seat Little Thurlow in Suffolk, where he built and endowed nine almshouses, and a free school. The school was to be open to Suffolk children, who were to be taught English, Latin, writing and arithmetic. In his will he also left money to be used for charitable works in London. He bequeathed £100 to enable the Grocers’ Company to provide 24 wheaten loaves each Friday for the poor prisoners in the Poultry Counter, and further small sums to provide bread weekly, for a year, for the prisoners in the other London prisons. During his lifetime he ‘re-edified and newly glazed the great north window of St. Paul’s cathedral’, and he spent £500, in 1617, on re-roofing the Grocers’ hall. ‘Sir Stephen Soame, our ancientest alderman’ wrote John Chamberlain, ‘died on Trinity Sunday [23 May 1619] and left a great estate behind him of better than £6,000 land and £4,000 goods’. This estimate of Soame’s landed wealth may be correct, but his personal estate was worth more than Chamberlain believed. Soame thought that if all his ventures abroad were successful, and his debts in London collected, his personal estate would be above £40,000. His will was proved on 26 Jan. 1620. He was buried in Little Thurlow church, where a monument was erected to him. His heir was his son Sir William.6

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: A. M. Mimardière Notes 1. Heath, Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, 254; C142/383/89; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xvii), 250-1; (cix, cx), 130; R. Clutterbuck, Herts. iii. 464. 2. A. B. Beaven, Aldermen, i. 102; ii. 43. 3. G. A. Carthew, Hundred of Launditch and Deanery of Brisley, iii. 61-2; W. D. Smythe, Girdlers’ Co. 113-14; Beaven; i. 102; APC, xviii. 218, 434; xxvi. 338, 508; HMC Hatfield, x. 164. 4. D’Ewes, 622, 624, 629, 634, 635, 642, 649, 654, 657, 667, 668, 669, 670, 672, 673, 674, 676, 680, 681, 687; Townshend, Hist. Colls. 221, 313, 325. 5. A. Friis, Cockayne’s Project and the Cloth Trade, 232-3, 242, 310, 326; H. Stevens, Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies, 1. 6. PCC 1 Soame; Heath, 15, 254; Chamberlain Letters ed. McClure, ii. 241.

http://www.alan137.co.uk/family/1965.htm

On 3rd December 1588, Sir Stephen Soame purchased the Manor of Brickendon (Brickendonbury) in Hertfordshire from Edmund Allen of Hatfield in Middlesex, plus other estates for £1,000.

Sir Stephen Soame (1544-1619), who built the first Little Thurlow Hall, was Lord Mayor of London. It was he who erected the almshouses for 'eight single persons of honest life and conversation', and the old schoolhouse for the teaching of Latin to boys, both of which are now private homes. (Scource: AA website).

He was also a successful merchant in London.

Sir Stephen and Lady Ann Soame had 11 children and 22 Grandchildren.

The following monumental inscription is in the church of Little Thurlow, in Suffolk, gives the best account of Sir Stephen Soame and of his family :—

Consecrated to the Memory of the Right Worshipful Sr. Stephen Soame K'. Lord Mayor of the Citie of London, in the year of our Lord 1598, and Mayor of the Staple there, almost 20 yeares, who was the Second Son of Thomas Soame, of Botely, alias Betely, in the County of Norfolcke, Gentleman, and Anne, his Wife Daughter and heir of Francis Knighton, of Little Bradley in the County of Suffolcke, Esquyer, and the Widowe of Richard Lehunt, of the said Towne, and County, Gentleman. The said Sir Stephen in his Life-time re-edified and newly Glazed the Great North Window of the Cathedral Church of S>. Paul in London. Newly settled and adorned at his own charge, the Roof of Grocers' Hall, in that city, gave to the same Company 10£ to be bestowed weekely in bread upon the poor Prisoners of the Counter in the Poultry of London, for ever. In this Towne of Little Thurlow, erected and buylt a Free School, with 20£ maintenance for a Master, and 10£ for the Usher there, yearly for ever, where he erected and endowed an Almshouse besides for 9 poor people, with maintenance for ever, the maintenance of both places to be paid by annuity, forth of the Mannour of Carleton in Cambridgeshire. He departed this life May 23 being Trinity Sunday, 1619, at the age of threescore and fifteene yeares, at his Mansion house, by him formerly buylt in this Parish of Little Thurlowe.