Thomas Bacon

http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1509-1558/member/bacon-thomas-1505... Constituency Dates LONDON 1547 Family and Education b. c.1505, 1st s. of Robert Bacon of Drinkstone and Hesset, Suff., and bro. of Nicholas. m. (1) disp. 26 Feb. 1536, Jane (d.1563), da. of one Mery, at least 1s. 1da.; (2) Elizabeth, da. and h. of Thomas Mery of Hatfield, Herts. suc. fa. Aug./Dec. 1548.1 Offices Held

Auditor, London 1548-50; member of Queen Elizabeth’s household in 1558; j.p. Herts. 1561-?d.; commr. benevolence 1564.2 Biography Thomas Bacon was of yeoman origin, his father being sheepreeve of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk until the Dissolution. He was the elder brother of Nicholas Bacon, Elizabeth’s first lord keeper, and of James Bacon, alderman of London. By 1532 he was a citizen and salter of London. For a time he traded in partnership with a grocer, Thomas Woolley, and after Woolley’s death bought up his goods, which included white soap, steel, Spanish iron, glass, canvas, madder, herrings and hops.3 Bacon visited Harwich in 1535 and was cited as a witness to the popish inclinations of the curate there. His home was in the London parish of St. Dunstan in the East, where the parishioners were quarrelling with their parson, over the payment of tithes. This particular dispute was remitted to the arbitration of the court of aldermen in February 1545 but the quarrel was not confined to a single parish. In the Parliament which met later in the year the curates of London exhibited a bill against the citizens for tithes: on 10 Dec. 1545 the court of aldermen ordered the two under sheriffs of the city to devise an answer to it ‘by the advice and consent’ of six commoners, including Bacon.4 He was himself a Member of the next Parliament, which opened in November 1547, and there are some traces of his activity in it. On 22 Nov. the court of aldermen heard read a bill prepared for presentation forbidding foreigners to live by the riverside: the bill was then committed to the common serjeant, John Marshe, ‘to be by him, with the advice of Master Bacon, salter, reformed in certain points’, and it was given its first, and only, reading in the House of Commons on 14 Dec. Bacon was also charged by the court of aldermen with preparing an answer to a bill introduced into the Lords in this session concerning the Thames which the city deemed to be against its interests. His services were again in demand during the next session, when the recorder, Robert Broke, and the common serjeant were told to take his advice in their efforts to obtain for the City an Act for the remission of the fee farm. Through his rising brother Bacon doubtless had access to the corridors of power, a situation which may account for the deferential attitude of the court of aldermen towards him, although when in 1550 he applied for the office of chamberlain of London, with letters of support from William Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire and Sir Thomas Wentworth I, 1st Baron Wentworth, his name was eliminated by vote of the aldermen in the preliminaries to the election.5 In 1550 Bacon bought from the Goldsmiths’ Company a messuage, with the shops and cellars belonging to it, in Thames Street and, from the Skinners, a neighbouring quay. In 1560 he obtained a lease of a house at Lewisham belonging to the City on condition that he lived there himself. He seems, however, to have moved soon after to Hertfordshire, where he became a justice of the peace in 1561. He was still alive in April 1573 when James Bacon bequeathed gold rings to him and his wife, but probably died later in 1573 or in 1574, since his name was not included in the commission of the peace issued in the 16th year of Elizabeth’s reign. He was certainly dead by 1580.6 Ref Volumes: 1509-1558 Author: Helen Miller

Notes 1. Aged about 35 in 1540, City of London RO, Guildhall, jnl. 14, f. 320v; Vis. Suff. ed. Metcalfe, 2, 109; Vis. Herts. (Harl. Soc. xxii), 152; Fac. Off. Reg. 1534-49, ed. Chambers, 45; Reg. St. Dunstan in the East, 126; PCC 19 Populwell, 28 Peter. 2. City of London RO, jnl. 15, f. 375; 16, f. 25; Lansd. 3(89), f. 193; CPR, 1563-6, p. 123. 3. City of London RO, rep. 8, f. 212; jnl. 14, ff. 320v-2. 4. LP Hen. VIII, ix; City of London RO, rep. 11, f. 163v; jnl. 15, f. 214. 5. City of London RO, rep. 11, f. 391v; 12(1), f. 46; 12(2), f. 288; jnl. 15, f. 339; CJ, i. 3. 6. City of London RO, husting roll 265(2); rep. 14, f. 394v; CPR, 1560-3, p. 438; 1563-6, p. 486; PCC 28 Peter.

• The New England Historical and Genealogical Register ..., Volume 57; Volume 1903 By New England Historic Genealogical Society Staff
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• .... Of remaining property I give one third to Anne my wife, one third to my two sons James and William Bacon and .... etc. Black gowns to each of the following--Thomas Bacon my brother in law and his wife, Sir Lyonell Duckett, knt., Lord Mayor, and the Lady his wife, Lady Barbara Champion, widow, the swordbearer Sir John White and the Lady his wife, Sir Christopher Draper and his wife, Sir Roger Marten and his wife, Mr. Recorder and his wife, Mr. Alderman Langley, Mr. Alderman Bonde and Mr. Alderman Oliff and their wives, my brother Coles and his wife, Robert Blackman, my sister Heleman, my brother William Packington and his wife, Mr. John Jackman, son of Edward Jackman, my brother Edward Pakenton, Robert Bacon, the foresaid William Webb and his wife, my sister Amy Hill, widow, my brother Williamson and his wife, Michael Goldstone and his wife, Oliver Goldstone and his wife if he have not any at time of my decease, Helen Flowerdale, widow, my son Ryvett and his wife, Thomas Bankes and his wife, Thomas Sharpe, my cousin Cockes in Lumbardstrete and his wife, Mr. John Cooper and his wife, my neighboure Pyrowe Cottie, George Lordinge, clerk of the fishmongers' Com., the deputies of my ward and the bedell of my warde, the goodman Golding of Hornechurche, co. Essex and his wife, Humfrey Bawdrick and his wife, William Ashebolde, M.A., and Thomas Cattell, curate of St. Dunstan's in the East. To the following money for rings:--My Lord Keeper* and his wife, my cousin Nicholas Bacon my lord's eldest son and his wife, my cousins Nathanyell Bacon and his wife, Edward, Anthony and Fraunces Bacon, my said son Ryvett and his wife, my said brother Thomas Bacon and his wife, my cousin Robert Bacon, my cousin Thomas Banckes and his wife, my cousin Robert Blackman, my cousin Robert Browninge and his wife, my cousin Thomas Sharpe, Bartholomew Kemp and his wife, the sd. Sir Lyonell Duckett, knt., Lord Mayor, and his wife, the sd. Sir John White and his wife and others mentioned above, Nicholas Packington and his wife, the sd. William Webb and his wife, my said daughter Tyrell and her sisters Margaret and Martha and to their brother Richard Goldestone, the ring which was his fathers with a cornelin therein, .... etc. my cousin Craifford and his wife, .... etc. my brother John Packington the elder and his wife, .... etc. my cousin Owen and his wife, .... etc.
  • * Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knt.
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• Robert Bacon son of my bro. Thomas Bacon 100 li. and he to be good to his sister Jane. To son Ryvett and his wife .... etc.
• My farm and lands in Hornechurch, co. Essex, in tenure of Edmonde James als Pynner to my son William and his heirs, remainder to my son James and his heirs, and my daughter Ryvett and her heirs. ... etc.
• Codicil of 5 May 1573, relating to repair of houses on Dice Key and .... etc. Proved 2 October 1573, by Anne the relict and Extrx. named. P. C. C., Peter, 28.
• James Bacon, the above testator, was married three times; by his first wife Mary, dau. of John Gardiner of Grove Place, co. Bucks., he had a daughter Anne, who married John Ryvett of Bramston, co. Suff., Esq., and three other children who all died in infancy. By his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Richard Rawlins of London, and widow of Richard Goldstone of London, salter, he had issue Sir James Bacon of Freston Hall, Suff., Knt., and William, second son, as well as two other children who did not survive.* His wife was Ann, dau. of Humphrey Packenton, and relict of Edward Jackman, Alderman and Sheriff of London, by whom he had no issue. The eldest son, Sir James Bacon, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis and Anne (Drury) Bacon, left issue Nathaniel Bacon, his son and heir, who was grandfather through his eldest son Thomas, of Nathaniel Bacon of Virginia, "the Rebel," and through his second son, Rev. James Bacon, Rector of Burgate in Suff., by his wife Martha Honeywood, of the other Nathaniel of Virginia, Councellor and acting Governor.
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• Martha, the widow of Rev. James Bacon, married second, Rev. Robert Peck, for 30 years Rector of Hingham in Suff., afterward of Hingham in Massachusetts, who had had issue by his first wife, a daughter, Anne Peck, who became the wife of Major John Mason of Seabrook, Conn., distinguished in the Pequot War. * ____________________________________