William Garrard
Sir William Garrard, also Garrett, Gerrarde, etc., was a Tudor magnate of London, a merchant citizen in the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, who became alderman, Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London and was returned as an MP for the City of London. He was a senior founding officer of the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands in 1554/55, having been involved in its enterprises since the beginnings in King Edward VI's time, and for the last decade of his life was one of its permanent governors. He worked hard and invested largely to expand English overseas trade not only to Russia and the Levant but also to the Barbary Coast and to West Africa and Guinea.
In his late years Garrard and his Company or Society of Adventurers promoted mercantile trading expeditions to Guinea. Under the command entrusted to John Hawkins the expedition of 1567–1568 became the infamous third slaving voyage to the West Indies. Garrard is also remembered for his labours on behalf of the London hospitals and for his efforts in practical help for poor and sick inhabitants of London. John Stow called him "a grave, sober, wise and discreete cittizen, equal with the best, and inferior to none of our time."
Early life
William Garrard was descended from an old gentry family of Sittingbourne, Kent, which had formerly gone by the name of Attegare. Sir Simon Attegare, born 1365, was the father of Stephen, who altered the name to Garrard. Their mansion appears to have been the manor of Fulston in Sittingbourne, as suggested by their various tombs or burials in the part of the parish church relating to that place.William was born in London, the son of John Garrard, citizen and Grocer, a prominent London businessman. He grew up in the parish of St Magnus-the-Martyr near London Bridge; he was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, and was married to Isabel Nethermill by 1539, when he was named an overseer in the will of his father-in-law Julian Nethermill of Coventry, who made small bequests to each of Garrard's children. In 1542 he purchased the manor of Dorney from the son of Richard Hill, who had held the manor from 1530 to 1540. Dorney Court remained his principal country seat throughout his life and became the inheritance of his eldest son. In 1545 he purchased the manor of Southfleet, in Kent, from Sir William Petre, which also became a family hereditament.
Henrican and Edwardian
In 1545, he was appointed by the Court of Aldermen to be a Surveyor of the Poor, with the duties of trying to find ways to combat poverty, and continued in that work until 1549. He was chosen an alderman in 1547, and served a term as Treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1548–1549. In 1550 he transferred to the Broad Street ward, and in 1556 to Lime Street, which he represented at the time of his death in 1571.The shrieval year, 1552–1553
In 1552 William Cecil, on behalf of King Edward VI, negotiated a £40,000 loan from the Merchant Adventurers through Garrard. In August Garrard was nominated to be one of the Sheriffs of London for 1552-1553 by the Lord Mayor, while his elected counterpart, the Master Clothworker John Crymes, and after him two others, declined their election by the Commons: by a fourth election, John Maynard was successfully chosen to be Garrard's fellow sheriff, whereupon both were sworn to office on 28 September 1552. On the next day George Barne was elected Lord Mayor. As Barne was also a Haberdasher, this was a year of special influence for the Company.The shrievalty term spanned the death of Edward VI, the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey and the succession of Queen Mary. Garrard was one of the signatories to the Letters Patent for the Limitation of the Crown. His official role in these memorable events appears in the narratives:
"The 10 of July at v of the clock in the afternone was proclamation made, with a trompetter, and 2 of the harouldes Kinges of Armes, and Mr Garret, the sheriffe, rydinge with them, of the death of our late soueraigne Edward VIth, and howe he had ordeyned by his letters patents, bearinge date the 21 of June last, the sayd Quene Jane to be heyre to the crowne of England and the heyres males of hir body lawfully begotten; which proclamation was made in 4 partes of the City of London, under the greate seale of England, bearinge date the 10 daye of July, in the Tower of London, and the first yeare of the raigne of Quene Jane, Quene of England, Fraunce and Ireland, Defender of the Fayth, and of the church of England and Ireland the supreme head".On the next day he supervised the setting of a man in the Cheapside pillory, with both his ears nailed to it, which were then cut off as a herald read out his offence of having uttered seditious words during the proclamation. But then on 19 July, the Council seeing which way the wind was blowing, they called the mayor and sheriffs to Westminster, and rode with them up to the Cross in Cheap, where the Garter King of Arms, in his rich coat of arms and with his trumpeter, proclaimed Mary to be Queen. After singing the Te Deum in St Paul's, "the Council departed and commaunded Mr Garret the sheriffe with the Kinge of Armes and the trumpetter to see the proclamation made immedyately in other accustomed places within the City." On 29 July he rode with Sir Martin Bowes and Sir Henry Hubberthorne to New Hall in Essex to deliver a benevolence from the City to Queen Mary, and on 31 July it was his duty to hold Sir John Yorke under house arrest and to seal up his house.
Garrard was among the original developers of the Moroccan trade. He was, with John Yorke, Thomas Wroth and others, one of the promoters and investors in the second voyage to the Barbary Coast, which made its expedition in a small fleet led by Thomas Wyndham in May to October 1552. In 1553 the Merchant Adventurers of London sent out a first voyage to Guinea and the Kingdom of Benin, and in that voyage Wyndham became irrational, and died.
At this time Garrard was among the original Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, for whom a royal charter was prepared under Edward VI but never sealed. According to Henry Lane, writing 33 years later, Garrard helped to finance the first voyage of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, the expedition of April 1553 promoted by Sebastian Cabot and led by Sir Hugh Willoughby in search of a Northeast Passage to Cathay, which failed in its declared objective, but resulted in Richard Chancellor's first diplomatic contacts with Tsar Ivan IV in Moscow. The succession crisis of 1553 drove Thomas Wroth into exile in Europe and found John Yorke in the Tower of London, but Queen Mary soon grasped the importance of the Company to her rule and issued her own charter in February 1554/55.
Marian
Among the first of Queen Mary's provisions was a commission of December 1553 to the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of London, together with various aldermen and others including William Garrard, to assist the poor prisoners in the Ludgate gaol by inspecting the cases of the debtors and their creditors and reaching equitable terms. In February 1555 he was one of a small group, led by Nicholas Hare, similarly commissioned to resolve the cases of debtors in the King's Bench Prison.The second Guinea voyage, which set out in October 1554, was promoted by Sir George Barne, Sir John Yorke, Thomas Lok, Anthony Hickman and Edward Castelin, under the captaincy of John Lok. Their expedition was trading in Guinea when, in February 1554/55 Queen Mary, in her Charter of Incorporation for the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, constituted its governance under Sebastian Cabot as Governor, with Sir George Barne, William Garrard, Anthony Hussey and John Southcote as Consuls, and with twenty-four Assistants. and 1556 The Muscovy Company was, meanwhile, busy with its own adventures.
The mayoral year
Having served as President of Christ's Hospital in 1553–1554, in 1555–56 Garrard was Lord Mayor of London, and, as was customary for that office, was knighted. Henry Machyn provides an account of the Lord Mayor's Pageant of 29 October 1555, as the Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen went by barge to Westminster for the oath-taking, and returned to St Paul's for festivities in customary fashion."... there were two goodly pinnaces decked with guns, flags and streamers, and a thousand pensells, the pinnaces painted, one white and blue, and the other yellow and red, and the oars and guns ' like colour; and with trumpets and drums, and all the Crafts in barges and streamers; and at the 9 of the clock my new lord mayor and the sheriffs and the aldermen took barge at the Three Cranes with trumpets and shawms, and the waites playing; and so rode to Westminster, and took his oath in the Exchequer, and all the way the pinnace shooting off guns, and plying up and down; and so after came back to Paul's Wharf, and landed with great shooting of guns and playing; and so in Paul's Churchyard there met the bachelors and a goodly pageant, and a sixty-six men in blue gowns, and with goodly targets and javelins, and a devil; and four tall men like wodys ' all in green, and trumpets playing afore the mayor." .
The sheriffs for this term were Thomas Leigh and John Machell. This proved to be one of the bloodiest years of the Marian persecutions, placing a heavy burden upon the sheriffs. The first months of the mayoral year were occupied with the death and obsequies of Bishop Gardiner. Then followed the discovery of a treasonable plot, which occupied the Guildhall through the spring and early summer of 1556.
The Dudley treason trials
In March 1556 the Henry Dudley conspiracy to depose Mary was discovered, leading to a series of trials for high treason at the Guildhall over which the mayors presided as justices for oyer and terminer. On 29 April Sir William Garrard, as Lord Mayor, presided at the general indictment at the Guildhall, with Sir Rowland Hill, Sir Roger Cholmeley, and Mr Recorder Sir Ralph Cholmley. In June Sir John Gresham of Titsey took the place of Hill on the bench for the indictment of Silvestra Butler, in the same matter. William West, Lord la Warr, was indicted on 27 June before Garrard, Roger Cholmeley, John Gresham and George Barne, and on 2 July 1556 Garrard was still presiding at the indictments of Andrew Foster and Henry Smythe. Edmund and Francis Verney were indicted on 11 June before Garrard, sitting with William Laxton, Martin Bowes, Andrew Judd and Ralph Cholmley.All these received pardons, but several others were tortured, condemned and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston is thought to have taken his own life in April, and Edward Lewknor, condemned with Francis Verney on 9 June, died a prisoner in the Tower of London in September. The monarch's suspicions were more generally aroused, and in November 1556 Garrard sat with Thomas Offley, Martin Bowes and Ralph Cholmley, at the indictment of Sir John Braye, 2nd Baron Braye, who had failed in his duty of respect to the sovereign upon the day of coronation by voicing the wish that Elizabeth were reigning instead.
In 1556 Garrard transferred his aldermanry to the Lime Street ward, and served as Auditor. He was the Master of the Haberdashers Company in 1557, and in that year was returned as Member of Parliament for City of London. In June 1557 Sir William and Lady Garrard were present as mourners at the funeral at St Benet Sherehog of Mistress Hall, mother of the historian Edward Hall, author of Hall's Chronicle.