William Portington (1544–1629) was an English carpenter and joiner, originally from St Albans, employed by Elizabeth I and James VI and I. He was master carpenter of the Office of Works.Oliver Garnett, Living in Style: A Guide to Historic Decoration and Ornament (National Trust, 2002), p. 80: Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (HMSO, 1963), pp. 101, 408.
Career and works
Portington was employed by Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, for his buildings on Fetter Lane. Sir Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey and Sir Nicholas Bacon of Redgrave paid him £20 in May 1579.A. Hassell Smith, Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, vol. 2 (Norwich, 1983), pp. 74-5.
Portington was employed in April and May 1603 during preparations for the coronation of King James and other ceremonies, supervised by Simon Basil and William Spicer. His account survives in the library of the University of Edinburgh. He repaired and altered the privy lodgings at the Tower of London and built new sheds for the kitchen and a pump to bring water from the Thames to the kitchen cistern. He repaired the "standard" or fountain at Westminster Palace.HMC Laing Manuscripts, vol. 1 (London, 1914): Edinburgh University, Laing II 636.
Portington worked for Robert Cecil at his London house in the Strand,J. F. Merritt, The social world of early modern Westminster: Abbey, court and community (Manchester, 2005), p. 120. and is thought to have made the Great Hall screen at Knole for Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset.Robert Sackville-West, The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles (Bloomsbury, 2010), p. 19.
He made masque scenery including the temple and rock for The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses performed in January 1604,John Pitcher, 'Samuel Daniel's Masque "The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses": Texts and Payments', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 26 (2013), pp. 17-42 citing TNA LR6/154/9. and The Masque of Beauty of January 1608.Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 325. He provided the shelving in Anne of Denmark's silkworm house.Jennifer Potter, Strange Blooms: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John Tradescants (Atlantic, 2014).
In 1607, Portington was involved in the construction of a new Banqueting House for Whitehall Palace. The building was probably designed by Robert Stickells. James Acheson made an architectural model for the roof, and Peter Street made a special augur to hollow out columns.John Orrell, 'Architecture of the Fortune Playhouse', Shakespeare Survey, 47 (Cambridge, 1992), 17.
He built the "hearse" or catafalque in Westminster Abbey for the funeral of Prince Henry in 1612. The hearse was painted by John de Critz.Anthony Harvey & Richard Mortimer, The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey (Boydell, 1994), p. 60: Howard Colvin, The History of the King's Works, 1485–1660, 3 part 1 (HMSO, 1963), p. 126. Portington and Inigo Jones constructed stands for the arraignment of the Earl of Somerset at Westminster Hall in 1616.David Cook and F. P. Wilson, "Dramatic Records in the Declared Accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber", Malone Society Collections, VI (London, 1962), p. 134.
Portington owned a house in St Martin's Lane, which he let to the crown for the use of the painter Daniël Mijtens.
His portrait was given to the London Company of Ironmongers by Matthew Bankes (a former apprentice) in 1637.Howard Colvin, The History of the King's Works, 1485–1660, 3 part 1 (HMSO, 1963), p. 133: A Catalogue of the Antiquities and Works of Art Exhibited at Ironmongers (London, 1863), p. 219. The picture shows him with dividers and compass.Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin, 'Material Memories of the Guildsmen: Crafting Identities in Early Modern London', Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Mueller, Jasper van der Steen, Memory before Modernity: Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2013), pp. 181-2.
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