Sir William Hewett (also Hewit, Huett, and Hewet; c. 1505 – January 25, 1567) was a prominent merchant of Tudor London, a founding member and later Master of the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers of London as incorporated in 1528, and the first of that Company to be Lord Mayor of London, which he became in the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His career arched across the first four decades of the Company's history, and drew him inexorably, if sometimes reluctantly, into the great public affairs of the age.E.L. Furdell, 'Hewett, Sir William, c. 1508–1567, mayor of London', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This supersedes C. Welch, 'Hewett, Sir William (d. 1567)' in Dictionary of National Biography (1891).
Origins and early career William, and his brother Thomas Hewett (died 1576), were born in the hamlet of Wales, in Laughton-en-le-Morthen, West Riding of Yorkshire, the sons of Edmund Hewett.R.E.C. Waters, Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley, Their Ancestors and Descendants, 2 vols (Robson and Sons, London 1878), I, pp. 226–29. The family was strongly associated with the neighbouring parish of Killamarsh (Derbyshire), in the Rother Valley. Edmund was apparently one of several brothers: various Hewett cousins, notably the sons of Francis Hewett (died 1560),The Will of Franncis Hewet of Wales, 1560 (Osborne, Duke of Leeds Collection, University of Leeds Library Special Collections ) is transcribed (2016) in Rhys Howitt's A Howet Hub website. (Wordpress. Retrieved 21 May 2017) followed in the Clothworkers' Company of London.See, e.g., Will of Leonard Hewet, Clothworker of London (P.C.C. 1565). There was a near family relationship to the judge Sir Francis Rodes (son of John Rodes of Staveley and Attelina Hewett),E. Foss, The Judges of England, with Sketches of their Lives, V: 1485–1603 (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, London 1857), 536-37. who built Barlborough Hall, the lost Hickleton Palace and a hall at Great Haughton.Waters, Chester of Chicheley, p. 226.
William got off to a flying start as one of the new men of the Guild or Fraternity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Clothworkers in the City of London, a livery company Incorporated by Charter of King Henry VIII in 1528The Charters and Letters Patent of the Kings and Queens of England to The Clothworkers' Company (Clothworkers' Hall, London 1881), pp. 8–15. by the amalgamation of the two earlier Guilds or Mysteries of the Fullers and the Shearmen.W. Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 2 vols, (Author, Guildhall, London, 1834–1837), II, pp. 643–64.J. Oldland, 'The London Fullers and Shearmen, and their Merger to Become the Clothworkers' Company', Textile History Vol. 39 Part 2 (Maney Publishing, November 2008), pp. 172-92. Unless free by patrimony, his own apprenticeship was served in one of the parent Guilds.Derek Hewett's surmise that he is the William Hewett who took BA in 1516/7 and MA 1520 in the University of Cambridge remains unconfirmed: see D. Hewett, William Hewett 1496–1556/7, Lord Mayor of London, (Unicorn Publishing, London 2004), pp. 1–38, at pp. 2–4, citing J. Venn & J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses I.ii (C.U.P., 1922), p. 362, col. 2. He took an apprentice of his own as early as 1529–30,Clothworkers' Company Records, Wardens' Account Books CL/D/5/1 ('1520'-1558), (Account of Richard Rogers rendered 24 June 1530). and was Junior Warden in the Mastership of John Permeter, 1531–32.Clothworkers' Company Records, Wardens' Account Books CL/D/5/1 ('1520'-1558), (Receyttes of the halle rendered by Richard fferyce). He served thereafter with the Company's Court of Assistants, sometimes auditing the accounts and performing other responsible duties. He obtained a substantial Company loan for his brother (also a citizen Clothworker, who assisted in his business) in February 1537/8, binding himself as security.Clothworkers' Company Records, Court Orders A (1537–1558), ref CL/B/1/1. He appears in litigation with the Merchant Taylor John Yorke.The National Archives, Discovery catalogue, piece description C1/931/44, Yorke v. Huett.
The Master and his wife
The senior Clothworker Edward Altham had served as Sheriff, but not as alderman of the City, in 1531–32.W.J. Thoms, A Survey of London written in the year 1598, by John Stow (Chatto & Windus, London 1876), p. 194. The status of the Company advanced early in 1538 when John Tolous, First Warden in 1536–37, was elected Alderman for Tower ward.A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 30. It appears that, being required to transfer to a more senior Company, he refused, and was briefly imprisoned in the Newgate. The Clothworkers then promised faithfully to do their bounden duty for the honour and common wealth of the city, and the Court therefore acknowledged them to be among the twelve head Companies of London (from which progress to the Court of Aldermen, and thereby to the shrievalty and mayoralty, should normally ariseHerbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, 'Historical essay', pp. 1–224.): Tolous was not required to transfer, and became alderman.J.J. Baddeley, The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward, from 1276 to 1900 (Private, London 1900), p. 145, citing City Records, Letter Book P, folio 139. The Company showed their appreciation by making Tolous their Master in August 1538. Hewett, who became First Warden in the succeeding Mastership of Thomas Spenser, 1539–40, faced altered career expectations as in August 1543 he was elected Master of the Company;Clothworkers' Company Records, Court Orders A (1537–1558), ref CL/B/1/1, s.a. 1538–1543. in the same year Tolous was chosen one of the Sheriffs.Beavan, Aldermen of London, I, p. 30.
Sir William Bowyer, who died in office as Lord Mayor in 1544, mentioned both Tolous and Hewett among his loving friends, and gave forty shillings to the "Honnest Company of Shooters" to be spent by Hewett at a supper at Mile End.Will of Sir William Bowyer, Lord Mayor of London (P.C.C. 1544). As the Master's chair approached, Hewett married Alice, daughter of Nicholas Leveson, Mercer and Merchant of the Staple of Calais (who died in 1539).Will of Nicholas Leveson, Merchant of London (P.C.C. 1539, written 1536). Waters, Chester of Chicheley, p. 227. Nicholas and his brother James Leveson (died 1547),Will of James Leveson (P.C.C. 1547). of Wolverhampton origins, were very prominent merchant citizens and Mercers in London during the 1520s and 1530s, and Nicholas had been Sheriff of London in 1534–35.R.F. Wisker, 'The estates of James Leveson of Wolverhampton (d. 1547)', Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society Transactions XXXVII (1995–1996), pp. 119–138. Leveson's wife Dionysia (Bodley) had brought him numerous sons and daughters, of whom Alice was the third, unmarried at the time of her father's death. James Leveson had married Margery, full sister of Thomas Offley, around 1530.G.C. Bower and H.W.F. Harwood, 'Pedigree of Offley', The Genealogist (Quarterly), New Series XIX (London and Exeter 1903), pp. 217–231 (continued in New Series XX (1904), pp. 49–56, 78–86 and 268-74), at p. 225. See note to 'Offley of Madeley', in H.S. Grazebrook (ed.), The Heraldic Visitations of Staffordshire made by Sir Richard St George, Norroy, in 1614, and by Sir William Dugdale, Norroy, in the years 1663 and 1664 (Mitchell and Hughes, London 1885), pp. 224–26. (HathiTrust.) The wealth and reputation of the Leveson mercantile operation, linked to their Kentish estates around the River Medway, continued in Dionysia, her descendants and near kindred.
William and Alice Hewett had several children, of whom only one, Anne, born in 1543, reached maturity, despite having been dropped by accident into the River Thames from a house on (or near) London Bridge at an early age.John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (London 1720), V.vi, pp. 133–34 (HRI Online/University of Sheffield). Waters, Chester of Chicheley, pp. 225–26. The hero of this story (first published from family tradition by John Strype in 1720), who dived in and rescued her, was Hewett's apprentice Edward Osborne (c.1530–1592), whose service to him began in 1544 or 1545, becoming free in 1553. Hewett therefore laid the foundations of Osborne's future success.S.P. Anderson, 'Osborne, Sir Edward (c.1530–1592), merchant and local politician', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Alderman and Sheriff of London Augustine Hynde, slightly junior to Hewett, became Master of the Company in August 1545 and was chosen alderman in April 1546.Beavan, Aldermen of London, I, p. 32. Beavan's exasperation with the mistakes of Charles Welch is apparent in his footnotes to pages 31–35. Tolous, who should have been the first Clothworker Lord Mayor, died in 1548, as the Company Hall and Parlour at Mincing Lane were rebuilding. If Hewett was reluctant to accept civic office, Edward VI's accession might have encouraged him: but when, after a year as Auditor to the City, he was elected for the Vintry ward in September 1550,Beavan, Aldermen of London, II (1913), Vintry ward: pp. 205–15, citing City records Rep. 12 (ii), ff. 261, 269; Letter Book R, fo. 90b. (British History online). he at first refused to serve and was committed to the Newgate until he accepted.City Records, Rep. 12(ii), fo. 261. This sat uncomfortably with the Company's former promise of duty, to which it owed its position among the Twelve. Hynde, a busy alderman, was by then (with Richard Turke and William Blackwell) an efficient Trustee for the City in the matter of the chantry lands and estates,See 'Grant of the Rents and Annual Payments for Superstitious Uses' (1550), in Charters and Letters Patent to The Clothworkers' Company, pp. 75–78. and became Sheriff at Michaelmas 1550.