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Susan and David Neave, 'The Early Life of William Kent'

Susan And David Neave, ‘The Early Life of William Kent’, The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol. VI, 1996, pp. 4–11

text © the authors 1996 THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM KENT

Susan and David Neave

ntil recently information on William Kent’s early life has been limited to the record of his baptism at and anecdotes provided by George Vertue.1 But work being undertaken by the authors for a new history of Bridlington has unearthed valuable Uinformation on Kent’s family, childhood home and probable early patrons. The identification of Bridlington as the birthplace of William Kent is based on a newspaper report of 1713 and a brief account of his life in an early nineteenth century history of the town.2 There is no entry recording the baptism of a William Kent in the registers of St Mary’s, Bridlington (), then the town’s only church, but there is one recording the baptism of William the son of William and Esther Cant on 1 January 1685/6.3 This entry has been assumed to refer to the artist,4 following the evidence of the Bridlington historian Thompson, who noted in 1821 that ‘The family name, which he modernised to KENT, was originally CANT’.5 It is shown below that Thompson was right, and that the artist only changed his surname to the seemingly more acceptable Kent just before he went to Italy in 1709. Bridlington parish registers provide further information about the Cant family.6 William Cant senior married Esther Shimmings on 27 November 1684 and in addition to William, they had a daughter Esther who was baptised 29 March 1692.7 The mother Esther Cant died in July 1697 when her son William was eleven, and her daughter only five.8 On 8 August 1714 the daughter Esther married Richard Peirson, a Bridlington sadler.9 They had three children, William, Esther and Mary.10 William Cant senior was buried on 23 May 1739 having outlived his wife by over forty years.11 There is no will for Cant amongst the probate records at but another line of enquiry gave an important lead. Until the later nineteenth century the ‘old town’ of Bridlington, as distinct from the harbour area known as the Quay, comprised little more than the long winding High Street and its continuation Westgate, the Market Place and properties to the north and west of the Priory church. There are a number of houses along High Street dating frorti the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, when Bridlington was enjoying a period of ecdnomic prosperity. These include, on the south side, the Toft (No.43) with a sumptuous artisan-mannerist interior12 and its equally interesting if more modest neighbour No.45. The latter has a datestone on the rear wing, crudely inscribed with the date 1693, above which are the initials W, raised C, and E, with a heart motif on one side, and a flower motif on the other. A search through the parish register for marriage partners with the appropriate initials at this period threw up the names of only three couples, including William and Esther Cant. In an attempt to establish whether this house could really have been built by William Kent’s parents a search was undertaken through the names index of deeds enrolled in the East Riding Registry of Deeds which was established in 1708. Fortuitously the only Cant reference was to an extract from William Cant’s missing will made 1 July 1731 and registered on 25 June 1739.13 Most significant is the description of Cant as ‘joiner’14 a rather appropriate occupation for the father of William Kent whose furniture designs are his most original works.15 The extract makes no mention of William Kent but it only reproduces that section of the will which deals with freehold property. Cant’s property at Bridlington, described as a ‘cottage or tenement with the mault kiln orchard garth garden and croft of meadow or pasture ground’ was left to his daughter Esther, wife of Richard Peirson, sadler, and after her death to his three grandchildren, William, Esther and Mary Peirson. Although the precise location of the property is not specified, there are

4 clues which suggest it lay on the south side of High Street.16 The subsequent history of the property traced through the Registry of Deeds can be summarised. Esther Peirson’s husband Richard and son William were already dead when she died in June 1749 and the property then passed to her two daughters who had both married.17 The younger Esther was married to Theodore Edgar, a apothecary, and Mary to Thomas Stead, a master mariner from Bridlington.18 Mary and Thomas Stead seemingly bought out Esther Edgar’s share of the house in High Street.19 Captain Thomas Stead died in 1754 and two years later his widow Mary, William Kent’s niece, married Thomas Dale, another master mariner.20 Before her second marriage a deed was drawn up concerning the High Street property, which refers to the ‘new erected’ messuage, suggesting the Steads had rebuilt the house.21 Mary Dale died in 1802, aged 84, and her husband, Thomas, the following year.22 In his will the house which his wife had inherited from her grandfather William Cant was left in trust to Dale’s nephew Luke Cade of Chelsea, grocer, who sold it to George Hodgson of Bridlington.23 From Hodgson’s acquisition in 1804 the descent of the property has been traced to the present day, and confirms that William Cant’s house was indeed No.45 High Street, built in 1693, nine years after his marriage.24 It is in this house that William Kent must have spent much of his childhood. The building is basically of the late seventeenth century, with a fine six-bay facade, apparently from the Steads’ mid-eighteenth century rebuilding, and a substantial early nineteenth century double-bowed shop front. The interior has good late seventeenth or early eighteenth century woodwork attributable to William Cant senior and the yard behind is paved with small yellow bricks, the ‘clinkers’ brought into East Coast ports as ballast from Holland in the seventeenth century. There is a long-established tradition that Kent came from a humble background.25 This is based partly on George Vertue’s statement that Kent’s parents’ or friends’ circumstances were not ‘in a condition to forward his practice and the expense of a profession’26, and partly on a misleading reference to a Mary Cant in the overseers of the poor account book for Bridlington in the 1630s.27 The substantial nature of No. 45 High Street and the quality of the internal fittings belie Kent’s humble origins. That his parents were literate is borne out by their clear signatures as witnesses to a deed drawn up in 1693 between William Marton, tanner, and Ralph Porter, gentleman, a member of one of the leading merchant families of the town.28 That Cant had a position of some standing in the community is confirmed by his serving as one of the constables of the manor in 1691 and his selection as a member of the manor court jury in 1688, 1697, 1698 and 1701.29 The young William Kent may have had a better education than has been hitherto supposed. As the son of a prosperous craftsman he is likely to have attended the grammar school held in the Bayle, the former gatehouse of the Priory, less than three hundred yards from Kent’s High Street home.30 In the 1690s the usher of the school, John Topham, was Cambridge- educated.31 Vertue states that Kent was apprenticed to a coach painter and house painter, whom Thompson claims was at Hull. There is no formal indenture of apprenticeship recorded in the Hull Corporation apprenticeship registers, which are complete from 1651.32 If Kent did serve an apprenticeship away from Bridlington it is almost certain that, as Michael Wilson has suggested, he returned to his family home for a tinie before he embarked on his career as a painter in London in 1708.33 The year or two at home were crucial for Kent’s future career for it is then that Vertue notes that his parents or friends ‘had the Good fortune to find some Gentlemen of that Country to promote his studyes, raisd a contribution and recommended him to propper persons at London to direct him to Italy ,34 Who were these local gentlemen who became Kent’s first patrons? It is tempting to think they may have been local gentry for whom Willian Cant senior worked as a joiner, although there is no documentary evidence of his employment anywhere. The

5 major country houses in the vicinity of Bridlington all have woodwork of the period. , five miles south-west, then owned by Sir Griffith Boynton35; Boynton Hall, two and a half miles west, altered internally 1700-04 by Sir William Strickland36; Thorpe Hall, , four miles west of Bridlington, rebuilt c. 1700 by Thomas Hassell37; and Hall, eight miles to the north-west, where the main three-storey east range was added c. 1707-10 by Sir Richard Osbaldeston.38 All these gentry looked to Bridlington for supplies and services. The account book of Leonard Bower, a merchant at Bridlington Quay, for the years 1707-21 includes sales of timber to Sir Griffith Boynton, Sir Richard Osbaldeston and Sir William Strickland and bricks to Thomas Hassell. Bower also lent money to Osbaldeston’s second son Richard.39 It is the Osbaldestons, who intermarried with the Stricklands and Hassells, who provide the most significant link.40 Although Hunmanby was equidistant from Scarborough and Bridlington it was to the latter, lesser, town that the Osbaldestons apparently turned. Sir Richard Osbaldeston (1654-1728) in his will bequeathed unto his ‘friend John Grimston of Bridlington, gentleman, as a legacy for the many favours he hath done me the sum of one hundred pounds’." Grimston was the leading attorney in Bridlington and as such drew up William Cant’s will and was co-witness with William Kent to three deeds in 1709.42 He was also attorney to Robert Greame who in 1708 left his house in High Street, Bridlington to Sir Richard Osbaldeston in trust.43 Greame’s house adjoined that of William Cant to the west.44 The only Osbaldeston link with William Kent that can be substantiated is not through any direct Bridlington connection but through Sir William Wentworth, fourth baronet, of Bretton Park, West Riding, Kent’s first identifiable patron. Wentworth’s mother was a sister of Sir Richard Osbaldeston. The Osbaldeston-Wentworth alliance was particularly close for not only did Sir Richard’s sister Elizabeth marry Sir Matthew Wentworth, third baronet in May 1677 but eight months earlier another sister Anne had married, as his third wife, Sir Matthew’s father, the second baronet.45 Therefore both Sir William Wentworth’s mother and step-grandmother were sisters of Osbaldeston. The connections with the extensive Wentworth clan went back to the previous generation for Sir Richard’s mother was Anne daughter of Sir George Wentworth of Woolley.46 Evidence suggests that the Wentworths of Bretton saw Hunmanby as a second home; indeed Sir William’s elder sister was baptised at Hunmanby in 1684 and was married there in 1716 to Thomas Hassell of Thorpe brother of Sir Richard Osbaldeston’s third wife.47 The young Wentworth, acknowledged by William Kent in Italy in 1712 as ‘my very good patron’,48 is said by Vertue to have made Kent an annual allowance of £40 for a period of seven years.49 Hitherto it has been thought that the two first became acquainted in Rome in April 1710, but it is more probable that Wentworth would already have been aquainted with Kent through his Osbaldeston uncle.50 By 1709 Kent was resident in London, not in Westminster, where he was to live after his return from Italy, but in the City. It is possible that he was helped on his way to London by Bridlington merchants, a number of whom had brothers, sons or other near relatives established in the capital.51 He may even have taken lodgings with one of these, Robert Prudom, a mercer.52 This is suggested by a series of three deeds drawn up in February 1709 by which Susanna Prudom, widow of Robert Prudom of Bridlington, merchant and her eldest son Robert, a London mercer, conveyed land in Bridlington to another son, David.53 The signature of Robert was witnessed by William Cant of the City of London, ‘limner’. Amongst the other witnesses were John Grimston the Bridlington attorney and Robert Popplewell, clerk.54 This is the first document so far discovered which mentions Kent following the record of his baptism. It not only shows continuing links with his place of birth, but it also provides the earliest mention of his occupation. Three months later, however, he had refined the spelling of his name. ‘Kent’ first appears in a letter from John Talman to his father on 12 May 1709. Here again links can be made with

6 Bridlington and the Osbaldestons. Talman wrote: The other day Mr Kent the painter who goes with me [to Italy] was carried by Sr Wm Ussier to my Lord Sunderland, who enquired of him how he went to Rome and with whom . . ,55 Ussier must be Sir William Hustler of Acklam, North Riding (1655-1729) whose mother was a Savile and a distant relative of Sunderland, at that moment Secretary of State.56 Hustler had strong Bridlington connections. His grandfather, the founder of the family fortunes, had been a wealthy Bridlington draper who endowed the town’s grammar school in 1636.57 Sir William was patron of the grammar school, owned property in the town and was lord of the manor of Marton in Bridlington parish.58 Husder’s wife was Anne, sister of Sir Richard Osbaldeston and widow of Sir Matthew Wentworth (1612-77), second baronet, of Bretton.59 Thus the young Sir William Wentworth was nephew of both Sir Richard Osbaldeston and Sir William Hustler. There is no evidence that William Kent carried out work for either Osbaldeston or for Hustler, who must now be considered amongst his early patrons.60 However Osbaldeston’s son Richard, who was from 1728 to 1747, did employ Kent on interior furnishings for . Kent designed the great pavement, ‘under the direction of Lord Burlington’ which was installed between 1731 and 1736, and he was also commissioned by Osbaldeston to provide a pulpit and Archbishop’s throne in a Gothic style in 1737, and possibly a clock.61 Although Kent may have on occasion returned to the East Riding when accompanying Lord Burlington to his estate at ,62 we do not know if he revisited Bridlington, only some twenty-five miles north east. That William Kent maintained contact with his family, however, is shown by his bequests to his sister Esther and her children William, Esther and Mary in his will, made in 1743. Kent’s nephew, William was also named as executor in the will, but predeceased his uncle.63 His burial is not recorded in the Bridlington registers, and it is possible that he too had moved to London to seek his fortune. As shown above, Kent’s elder niece Esther lived in London after her marriage, but her sister Mary remained in Bridlington throughout her life.64 Possibly it was the money left to her by her uncle which enabled the remodelling of No.45 High Street, Kent’s childhood home. William Kent, who was born in a house in Burlington, then an alternative name for Bridlington, died some fifty-nine years later at , Piccadilly.65

OSBALDESTON — WENTWORTH — HUSTLER

William Osbaldeston (1631-1707) ofHunmanby, Yorks m. Anne dau. of Sir George Wentworth of Woolley, Yorks

I Samuel Hassell Judith m. Sir Matthew Wentworth m. Ann Osbaldeston of Thorpe Hall, Rhodes 2nd bt. (1612-1677) (b. 1656) Rudston, Yorks 2nd wife of Bretton, Yorks 3rd wife. Remarried in 1680 SIR WILLIAM HUSTLER (1655-1729)

Elizabeth m. SIR RICHARD OSBALDESTON m. Catherine Elizabeth m. Sir Matthew Wentworth Fountaine (1654-1728) ofHunmanby Hassell Osbaldeston 3rd bt (d.1706) 2nd wife 3rd wife (1658-1694) of Bretton

r ~

William Richard Osbaldeston Thomas Hassell m. Ann Wcnnwrth SIR WILLIAM WENTWORTH Osbaldeston (1690-1764), Dean of York of Thorpe Hall bapt. Hunmanby 1684 4th bt. (1686-1763) (1688-1766) and (d. 1773) married Hunmanby 1716 of Bretton of Hunmanby

7 NOTES 1. F.F. Johnson, ‘William Kent and Bridlington’, Country Life, CIV, July 9 1948, 88; M. Jourdain, The Work of William Kent, London, 1948, addendum after title page, 26; M.I. Wilson, William Kent, London, 1984, 1-6; M. Edmead ‘William Kent: Early Life’ in John Wilton-Ely [ed.] A Tercentenary Tribute to William Kent, Hull, 1985, 10-13; Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, Newhaven and London, 3rd edition, 1995, 580. 2. J. Thompson, Historical Sketches of Bridlington, Bridlington, 1821, 113-116; British Mercury, 5 August 1713, quoted in Wilson, op.cit., 9. 3. , County Archive Office (hereafter HCAO), PE 153/2. 4. F.F. Johnson, ‘An Appreciation of William Kent’, Transactions of the Georgian Society for East , II, pt. iii, Hull, 1949, 24-25; Wilson, op. cit., 1. 5. Thompson, op.cit., 113. 6. The surname Cant does not occur in the hearth tax returns for Bridlington of 1670-3, suggesting William Cant had moved to Bridlington after this date, possibly as a young man to serve an apprenticeship. (PRO E179/205/504,514,521; E179/261/11). At Seamer, a village about fifteen miles north-west of Bridlington, baptisms of ‘William son of William Cant’ are recorded on 27 January 1649/50 and 9 June 1665, but the identification of either of these infants with the William Cant who married Esther Shimmings in 1684 has not been established. (HCAO PE 133/1.) 7. HCAO PE 153/2-3. The month of William and Esther’s marriage has previously been misread as October, and Esther’s surname as Shimming. 8. HCAO PE 153/3 9. HCAO PE 153/4 10. Jourdain, op.cit., 90 (Will of William Kent). 11. HCAO PE 153/4 12. F.F. Johnson, ‘The Toft, Bridlington’, Transactions of the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire, II, pt. iv, Hull, 1950, 33-45. 13. East Riding Registry of Deeds (hereafter ERRD), P/302/708. The Registry of Deeds is administered by Humberside County Archive Office. 14. In the parish register entry relating to his burial William Cant is termed ‘yeoman’, probably a courtesy title, although he seemingly farmed, as did many Bridlington tradesmen; see footnote 29 below. 15. Wilson, op.cit., 105-126. In the years 1726-1735 William Kent was Master Carpenter to the Office of Works. Although the post had become virtually a sinecure, and not'confined to appointees with the relevant skills, it was an appropriate post for Kent with his woodworking background. [H.M. Colvin (ed.), History of the King’s Works, V, London, 1976, 472.] 16. ERRD P/302/780. The associated croft lay on the south side of South Back Lane, which runs along the backs of the houses on the south side of High Street. 17. HCAO PE 153/6; ERRD U/139/262 18. Idem. 19. ERRD X/467/1087 20. HCAO PE 153/6, PE 153/22; York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research (hereafter BIHR), Will of Thomas Stead of Bridlington, merchant, proved April 1754. 21. ERRD X/467/1087 22. HCAO PE 153/7 23. BIHR, Will of Thomas Dale of Bridlington, gent, proved March 1803; ERRD CF/539/854. 24. In 1810 the house was sold to a linen and woollen draper; the present shop front was probably inserted around this date. The property was later occupied by a printer and stationer, and is now an antique shop [ERRD CP/405/626, EH/80/101, John Wood, Plan of Bridlington, 1828]. The present owners of No. 45 High Street are the Lords Feoffees of the Manor of Bridlington who have generously provided funds for the research on the history of the town. 25. Johnson, ‘An Appreciation ...’, cit., 24; Jourdain, op.cit., addendum inserted after title page; Wilson, op.cit., 1. 26. Vertue Note Books, III, Walpole Society XXII, 1933-4, 139. 27. J.S. Purvis, Bridlington Charters, Court Rolls and Papers, London, 1926, 158. Purvis is cited as source in Johnson, ‘An Appreciation ...’, cit., 24 and Jourdain, op. cit., addendum. 28. Hull University Library (hereafter HUL), DDSQ(2)/4/7. In 1693 Ralph Porter mercer sold land in to William Cant’s High Street neighbour Robert Greame gentleman [HUL DDLG/2/11]. 29. Bridlington, The Bayle, Lords Feoffees Records, Bridlington Manor Court Rolls 1680-1702. No court rolls survive for the years 1703-25, but in 1727, 1728 and 1731 William Cant was fined 4d for ‘miden’ in the back lane [Bridlington Manor Court Rolls 1726-31], 30. KJ. Allison (ed.), Victoria County History, York East Riding (hereafter VCH) II, London, 1974,78. 31. HCAO DDX 120/70; J.A. Venn (ed.), Alumni Cantabrigienses Pt.I, vol. iv, Cambridge, 1927, 253. 32. Thompson, op. cit., 113-4; Hull City Record Office, BRG/6. If Kent was apprenticed in Hull he may have met the

8 French painter James Parmentier (1658-1730) who was resident in Hull in the first decade of the eighteenth century [ Vertue Note Books III, cit., 45-6]. 33. Wilson, op. cit., 3 34. Vertue Note Books III, cit., 139 35. A. Oswald, Burton Agnes Hall Country Life, CXIII, June 6-18 1953; M. Imrie, The Manor Houses of Burton Agnes and their Owners, , 1993, 57-60. 36. A. Oswald, ‘Boynton Hall, Yorkshire - II’, Country Life, CXVI, July 29 1954, 357-359. 37. Allison, op. cit., 314; N. Pevsner and D. Neave, The Buildings of - Yorkshire: York and the East Riding, 2nd edition, London, 1995, 665. 38. Allison, op. cit., 232; Pevsner and Neave, op. cit., 570 39. Bridlington, The Bayle, Lords Feoffees Records, Leonard Bower’s Account Book. Bower also made sizeable loans to John Greame (1663-1746) the builder of Hall and sold timber to the influential Bridlington attorney John Grimston who built Bridlington’s grandest house, The Avenue, Westgate in 1714. 40. Sir Richard Osbaldeston’s first wife was Frances daughter of Sir Thomas Strickland of Boynton and his third wife was Catherine daughter of Thomas Hassell of Thorpe |J.W. Clay (ed.), Dugdale’s Visitation of Yorkshire, I, Exeter, 1899, 196], 41. BIHR, Wills Prerogative, January 1728/9 42. ERRD A/61/79,80 and 81. 43. BIHR, Wills Dickering, June 1711. In 1734 William Osbaldeston of Hunmanby was one of the parties to the marriage settlement when Hannah, daughter of John Grimston married John Robinson of Buckton [HCAO, DDWR 6/1], 44. ERRD E/192/14; BIHR CP/1/3088. 45. Clay, op. cit.,I, 195-7. Ann Osbaldeston witnessed the will of Sir Matthew Wentworth 2nd baronet made 22 Feb 1707 [BIHR, Wills Doncaster, July 1708], 46. Clay, op. cit.,II, 323; they were a branch of the family. 47. HCAO PE22/1 48. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng Misc C.114, Letter to Samuel Gale, quoted in Wilson, op.cit., 4. 49. Vertue Note Books, III, cit., 139 50. Edmead, op. cit., 11. 51. e.g. Leonard Bower’s brother William was a merchant in London by 1709 [Bridlington, The Bayle, Lord Feoffees Records, Leonard Bower’s Account Book]; John Yates of London, merchant, son of John Yates late of Bridlington merchant, was party to a deed in 1718 [ERRD F/159/342]; Thomas Corbett of Hammersmith, gentleman, brother of Francis Corbett of Bridlington, mercer, 1722 [ERRD H/181/378]. 52. For Robert Prudom and the intricate network of Yorkshire connections which existed amongst a section of the London trading and craft community, see appendix by Richard Hewlings below. 53. ERRD A/61/79, 80 and 81. 54. In a letter that Kent wrote from Italy to Samuel Gale in April 1712 he asks him to give his ‘service to Mr Popplewell’ [Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng Misc C.114], doubtless the Robert Popplewell, clerk, who was a co-witness with William Kent to the three Bridlington deeds in February 1709. Popplewell (born c. 1675) the son of a Lincolnshire clergyman had an East Yorkshire connection for he had attended Beverley Grammar School before he went to St John’s College, Cambridge. [J.A. Venn, (ed.), Alumni Cantabrigienses, I, iii, Cambridge, 1924, 381]. The antiquary Samuel Gale (1682-1754), another of Kent’s early London friends also had Yorkshire origins. His family came from Scruton, North Riding where his father Thomas, dean of York 1697-1702, purchased an estate in 1688. Samuel’s older brother and fellow antiquary Roger (1672-1744), M.P. for Northallerton 1705-10, had married Henrietta Raper, daughter of Henry Raper of Cowling Hall in the parish of Bedale, North Riding, at York Minster in 1702. Henrietta was almost certainly related to the Rapers of Langthorne (see appendix below) another township in the parish of Bedale three miles from Scruton. Roger Gale built Scruton Hall about 1705. It was demolished in 1958. [C.S. Preston (ed.), The Parish Register of Scruton, Yorkshire Archaelogical Society Parish Register Series 156, , 1991, xi, 45; J. Foster, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, II, London, 1874; NYCRO ZCI 1/3-4/, 1169; Edward Waterson and Peter Meadows, Lost Houses of York and the North Riding, Thornton-le-Clay, 1990, 54] 55. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS English Letters, e.34, p.47. Richard Hewlings identified Sir William Hustler from this passage, and brought it to our attention. 56. Clay, op. cit., I, 65-8. William Hustler (1655-1729), son of William Hustler (d. 1670) and Frances daughter of Sir John Savile of Lupset (d. 1671), was knighted on 4 May 1678. Sir William Hustler’s mother was second cousin of Sir George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-95) whose first wife Lady Dorothy Spencer, was aunt of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722) [Clay, op. cit., I, 66-7]. The 3rd Earl of Sunderland, son-in-law of the Duke of Marlborough, was Secretary of State for the Southern Department from December 1706 to June 1710. [Dictionary of National Biography, LIII, 1898, 344-45] 57. Allison, op. cit., II, 78.

9 58. HCAO DDX 120/5; Allison, op. cit.,II, 97; HUL, DDLG/42/32. In 1694 Hustler and his wife sold the manor of 15 miles south of Bridlington to Robert Greame, William Cant’s High Street neighbour. [HUL DDLG/22/11]. Apparently Hustler was a close friend of Sir Richard Osbaldeston for he was one of the parties to the settlements drawn up before Sir Richard’s second marriage in 1686, along with Sir Michael Wentworth of Woolley, and before his third marriage in 1715. [HCAO DDHU/9/74 and 18/14] 59. Clay, op. at., I, 65-8. Hustler married Ann, widow of Sir Matthew Wentworth, daughter of William Osbaldeston of Hunmanby on 8 July 1680. They had seven sons and six daughters [HCAO DDX 120/63], 60. I. Ware, Designs of and Others, 1731, includes designs by William Kent for two East Riding gentry, a chimneypiece for Sir William Strickland of Boynton and a garden seat for Sir Charles Hotham of . See Johnson ‘An Appreciation ...’, at., 27-8. 61. Terry Friedman ‘The Transformation of York Minster, 1726-42’, Architectural History, XXXVIII, 1995, 69-90. Of the 279 subscribers for the new pavement only 118 were neither clergy nor officials of the minster or diocese, and amongst these members of the Osbaldeston-Wentworth circle were particularly well represented. They included Thomas Hassell of Thorpe, Lady Hustler, widow of Sir William Hustler, James Hustler of Acklam, James Hustler of London, Lady Osbaldeston widow of Sir Richard Osbaldeston, William Osbaldeston of Hunmanby, Sir William Strickland of Boynton, and Sir William Wentworth of Bretton [York Minster Library (hereafter YML), B3/2/10]. The first contribution was made on 11 May 1731, and significantly the third, of one guinea, was made on 14 May by Mr William Hudson of Bridlington, the owner and occupier of 43 High Street, Bridlington (The Toft) and next door neighbour to William Cant [YML B3/2/11]. 62. Lindsay Boynton, Lord Burlington at Home’ in Dana Arnold [ed.], Belov’d by Ev’ry Muse: Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington & 4th Earl of Cork, 1994, 27, 54, n.76. Boynton notes that the references to Kent at Londesborough are ambiguous. 63. Jourdain, op.cit., 89-91; Wilson, op. at., 245 64. Esther Peirson married Theodore Edgar, an apothecary, at St George, Hanover Square on 16 October 1748, six months after Kent’s death [International Genealogical Index]. In November 1749 the couple were living in Bolton Street, a fashionable address close to Burlington House [ERRD U/139/262]. It is not known when Esther moved from Bridlington to London, but possibly her uncle William Kent had found her employment in the city. 65. Lord Burlington had no property at Bridlington. When Richard Boyle, second Earl of Cork was raised to the English peerage in 1665 it is said that he chose the title of Burlington as a tribute to Queen who had assisted him to the honour. Henrietta Maria seemingly had an affection for the East Yorkshire port where she had landed with funds and reinforcements for her husband in 1643. T.C. Barnard ‘Land and the Limits of Loyalty: The Second Earl of Cork and First Earl of Burlington (1612-98)’ in Toby Barnard and Jane Clark (eds), Lord Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life, 1995, 184-5.

APPENDIX ROBERT PRUDOM by Richard Hewlings. Robert Prudom, mercer, whose deeds William Kent witnessed in February 1709, was the son of Robert Prudom of Bridlington, merchant. He was apprenticed to John Prudom, possibly his uncle, on 14July 1702.1 Robert obtained his freedom in October 1710.2 However the Grocers’ Company Admission of Freemen 1694- 1714 only records the admission of a ‘William Prudom late Apprentice to John Prudom’ in that month, on the 20th.3 There is no record of any Williams being bound apprentice, so it may be that ‘William is a clerical error in this last document. John Prudom, Robert’s master, was the son of Robert Prudom of Bridlington, mercer. His father was dead at the time when John was bound apprentice on 3 July 1693.4 John’s master was William Dring, a grocer, and also a Yorkshireman; he was the son of Edward Dring of New Malton, Yorks, grocer, and had been apprenticed to Henry Wandell, grocer and citizen, on 3 August 16815; he became free of the Grocers Company on 4 March 1689.6 Marginal notes in the Grocers’ Company Register ofFreeman and Apprentices 1686- 1721 record Tn Loathbury Grocer’ beside the record of Prudom’s binding to Dring, and Tn Loathbury near Sr H Tuls Grocer’ beside the record of Dring’s binding to Wandell.7 John Prudom’s apprenticeship did not follow a regular course. He took nine, rather than the usual seven years, and changed masters twice. He was admitted a freeman of the Grocers’ Company on May 19 1702, sponsored not by his original master William Dring, but ‘By George Wise Painter & Steyner & William Brett Cloathworker’.8 His certificate of indenture is endorsed ‘Wm. Brett Clothwr. 21/4 years, per Giorgio Wise ultim. Magr. for 43/4 Yeares’9. This would suggest that he was apprenticed to Dring from July 1693 to

10 sometime before 19 May 1695, when he transferred to William Brett, transferring again to George Wise in the late summer of 1697. At the time of the poll tax assessment taken on 15 May 1695, he was not living with any of these masters, but with the family of Henry Raper in the parish of St Martin Ludgate10; here he was the only member of the household to be identified in the taxable class of bachelor aged above 25, which in turn means that he had reached an unusually great age, over 32, before he attained his freedom. Henry Raper was also a Yorkshireman. He was the son of Richard Rapier [sic] of Langthorne, Yorks, gentleman, who was deceased at the time of Henry’s apprenticeship to Richard Weston, painter Stainer, on 21 April 1670.11 He became free of the Painter Stainers Company on 6 June 1677 12, and took his first apprentice (Charles Davies, son of Peter Davies of Addington, Kent, minister, deced) on 27 February 1678 13. His second apprentice was George Wise, who came from his native village; George Wise was the son of Thomas Wise of Langthorne, Yorks, gentleman, and he was bound apprentice to Raper on 3 March 1680 H. Raper took five more apprentices, but, of these, Elias Sinnock (son of Elias Sinnock of Bourne, Sussex, yeoman) was bound on 27 October 1682, and would thus have been free before the poll tax assessment in 1695.15 The other four, John Metcalfe (son of John Metcalfe, late of Braithwaite, Yorks, gentleman; bound 29 September 1697), John Ewens (son of Stephen Ewens, of St Clements’ Danes, Middlesex, milliner; bound 14 September 1698), James Thorne (son of Gabriel Thorne of Leatherhead, Surrey, gentleman; bound 8 December 1708), and Jonathan Troy (son of Jonathan Troy, of Beddell [sic], Yorks, yeoman; bound 3 August 1709), only became apprentices after the poll tax assessment had been made.16 At that date he had three other males besides John Prudom living in his house. They were Tymothy Binkes, John Goodman and Samuel Bolton. None are identified as bachelors over 25; nor do any appear in the Painter Stainers Company’s Register of Apprentice Bindings 1666-1795. They were presumably servants of some kind, although not identified as such, unlike the two maid servants, Martha Wineyard and Mary Godwin.17 George Wise obtained his freedom as a painter Stainer on 1 October 1690.18 His first apprentice was another Henry Raper, son of another Richard Raper of Langthorne, Yorks, gentleman, who was bound to him on 1 April 1696.19 John Prudom must presumably have been his next apprentice, from late summer 1697, although there is no record of this. On 1 June 1709 Wise took his son, Thomas, as apprentice.20 After that he took one more apprentice, Robert Bee, son of Henry Bee, ‘late Cittizen and Marchant Taylor of London Deced’, on 3 September 1712.21 There is no record of any Cant being apprenticed either as painter Stainer or as grocer. But Thomas Cant and Jane, his wife, were assessed for tax in St Mary Somerset parish in 1695.22

NOTES 1. London, City of London Record Office, CFI/274; Guildhall Library, GLMS 11595 2. City of London Record Office, CFI/274 3. Guildhall Library, GLMS 11596 4. City of London Record Office, CFI/177/74; Guildhall Library, GLMS 11593, 11598. 5. Guildhall Library, GLMS 11503, 11598 6. Ibid., GLMS 11598 7. Idem. 8. Guildhall Library, GLMS 11596 9. City of London Record Office, CFI/177/74. 10. D V Glass, ‘London Inhabitants within the walls, 1695’, London Record Society, II, 1966, 241; City of London Record Office, Marriage Assessment No 54 [St Martin Ludgate], [p.16]. 11. Guildhall Library, GLMS 5669 12. Ibid, Painter Stainers Company, Freedom Admissions Register 1658-1820. 13. Guildhall Library, GLMS 5669 14. Idem. 15. Idem. 16. Idem. 17. City of London Record Office, Marriage Assessment No 54 [St Martin Ludgate], [p.16]. 18. Guildhall Library, Painter Stainers Company, Freedom Admissions Register 1658-1820 19. Ibid, GLMS 5669. 20. Idem. 21. Idem. 22. Glass, op.cit. , 52.

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