Lawrence Sheriff (original) (raw)
Lawrence Sheriff (or Sheriffe) (c. 1515 or 1516 – September 1567) was an Elizabethan merchant and benefactor, who was notable for being grocer to Queen Elizabeth I, and for creating Rugby School through an endowment in his will. Throughout his life he bought extensive property in the areas of Rugby, Brownsover and London, including the estate of Conduit Close in Middlesex.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | Lawrence Sheriff (or Sheriffe) (c. 1515 or 1516 – September 1567) was an Elizabethan merchant and benefactor, who was notable for being grocer to Queen Elizabeth I, and for creating Rugby School through an endowment in his will. Not much is known about Lawrence Sheriff's early life, but it thought that he was born either in a (now long vanished) house opposite St Andrew's Church in Rugby, Warwickshire, or in an extant house in the nearby village of Brownsover. His father was a yeoman farmer, and probably one of the most important people in Rugby at the time. His date of birth is not known with certainty, but is believed to have been either 1515 or 1516. Sheriff likely received a basic education from the monks of Pipewell who had a small grange in Rugby at the time. He was apprenticed by his father, to a London grocer named William Walcott, at which point he went to London. His seven-year apprenticeship ended in 1541, after which he became a London grocer during the reign of King Henry VIII. In 1554 he was elected to the London livery company the 'Worshipful Company of Grocers'. Sheriff became a highly successful grocer to many of the rich and powerful of the day including Princess (later Queen from 1558) Elizabeth. Sheriff provided "spices and necessaries" to Princess Elizabeth when she was living in exile at Hatfield House. Sheriff remained unwaveringly loyal to her during this difficult period, and in 1559 following her accession he was granted a coat of arms produced by Herald's College with the Queen's approval, the main feature of which is a griffin, the traditional guardian of treasures. In the New Year's Gift list for 1562 there was a record of an exchange of gifts between Sheriff and the Queen; he gave her "a sugar loaf, a box of ginger, a box of nutmegs and a pound of cinnamon", she in return gave him "one gilt salt with a cover (weighing 7 oz.)". Throughout his life he bought extensive property in the areas of Rugby, Brownsover and London, including the estate of Conduit Close in Middlesex. He became a wealthy merchant, and married a woman called Elizabeth but was not known to have had any children. In 1566 he was elected as the Vice-Warden of the Grocers Company, but the following year he became ill and died in September 1567. In his last few months he drew up a will which stipulated that his fortune should be used to found almshouses and a school "to serve chiefly for the children of Rugby and Brownsover... and next for such as be of other places hereunto adjoyneing.". Shortly before his death, Sheriff added a codicil to his will reducing the amount of money he left to the school, but instead leaving his eight acre Conduit Close estate: At the time this estate was undeveloped farmland on the edge of London, however, in time this endowment made Rugby School a wealthy institution due to the subsequent development of the area and rise in land values. The area of the estate includes much of what is now Great Ormond Street, Lamb's Conduit Street and Rugby Street in the London district of Bloomsbury. This endowment was not fully realized, however, for some time, due to a challenge over the provisions of the will from the Howkins family, to whom Sheriff was related through his sister, Bridget. He requested to be buried at parish church of St Andrew's Church in Rugby, where his parents were buried, but this request was not carried out, and instead he was buried at Christ Church Greyfriars in Newgate in London. However no trace remains: the church and all its monuments were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. He is remembered today by the Lawrence Sheriff School in Rugby. Both Rugby School and the Lawrence Sheriff School use versions of the coat of arms granted to Lawrence Sheriff in 1559. (en) |
| dbo:birthPlace | dbr:Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:England dbr:Warwickshire |
| dbo:birthYear | 1515-01-01 (xsd:gYear) |
| dbo:deathPlace | dbr:London |
| dbo:knownFor | dbr:Rugby_School dbr:Elizabeth_I_of_England |
| dbo:occupation | dbr:Grocer dbr:Lawrence_Sheriff__PersonFunction__1 |
| dbo:thumbnail | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Drawing_depicting_Lawrence_Sheriff.jpg?width=300 |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 339601 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 5350 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1042838167 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:Rugby_School dbr:Rugby_Street dbr:Merchant dbr:Bloomsbury dbc:16th-century_merchants dbc:British_grocers dbr:Elizabethan_era dbr:Newgate dbr:Elizabeth_I_of_England dbr:England dbr:Great_Fire_of_London dbc:Rugby_School dbr:Almshouses dbr:London dbc:Founders_of_English_schools_and_colleges dbr:Brownsover dbc:1567_deaths dbr:Warwickshire dbr:Lamb's_Conduit_Street dbr:Livery_company dbr:Grocer dbr:Hatfield_House dbr:Henry_VIII_of_England dbc:1510s_births dbc:16th-century_English_educators dbc:People_from_Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:Lawrence_Sheriff_School dbr:Codicil_(will) dbr:Heraldry dbr:Pipewell dbr:St_Andrew's_Church,_Rugby dbr:Griffin dbr:Great_Ormond_Street dbr:Middlesex dbr:Christ_Church_Greyfriars dbr:Worshipful_Company_of_Grocers dbr:Yeoman dbr:Herald's_College |
| dbp:birthPlace | dbr:Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:England dbr:Warwickshire |
| dbp:burialPlace | dbr:Christ_Church_Greyfriars |
| dbp:caption | Drawing depicting Lawrence Sheriff (en) |
| dbp:deathPlace | dbr:London |
| dbp:imageSize | 180 (xsd:integer) |
| dbp:knownFor | Grocer to Elizabeth I, founder of Rugby School (en) |
| dbp:name | Lawrence Sheriff (en) |
| dbp:occupation | dbr:Grocer |
| dbp:spouse | Elizabeth Sheriff (en) |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Authority_control dbt:Circa dbt:Infobox_person dbt:Reflist dbt:Short_description dbt:Death_date |
| dcterms:subject | dbc:16th-century_merchants dbc:British_grocers dbc:Rugby_School dbc:Founders_of_English_schools_and_colleges dbc:1567_deaths dbc:1510s_births dbc:16th-century_English_educators dbc:People_from_Rugby,_Warwickshire |
| gold:hypernym | dbr:Gentleman |
| rdf:type | owl:Thing foaf:Person dbo:Person dul:NaturalPerson wikidata:Q19088 wikidata:Q215627 wikidata:Q5 wikidata:Q729 yago:WikicatBritishGrocers dbo:Animal dbo:Eukaryote dbo:Species schema:Person yago:WikicatPeopleFromRugby,Warwickshire yago:Adult109605289 yago:Businessperson109882716 yago:Capitalist109609232 yago:CausalAgent100007347 yago:Educator110045713 yago:Grocer110147710 yago:LivingThing100004258 yago:Merchant110309896 yago:Object100002684 yago:Organism100004475 yago:Person100007846 yago:PhysicalEntity100001930 yago:Professional110480253 yago:YagoLegalActor yago:YagoLegalActorGeo yago:Whole100003553 yago:Wikicat16th-centuryEducators yago:Wikicat16th-centuryEnglishPeople yago:WikicatEnglishEducators yago:WikicatPeopleOfTheTudorPeriod |
| rdfs:comment | Lawrence Sheriff (or Sheriffe) (c. 1515 or 1516 – September 1567) was an Elizabethan merchant and benefactor, who was notable for being grocer to Queen Elizabeth I, and for creating Rugby School through an endowment in his will. Throughout his life he bought extensive property in the areas of Rugby, Brownsover and London, including the estate of Conduit Close in Middlesex. (en) |
| rdfs:label | Lawrence Sheriff (en) |
| owl:sameAs | freebase:Lawrence Sheriff yago-res:Lawrence Sheriff wikidata:Lawrence Sheriff https://global.dbpedia.org/id/4qBUq |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Lawrence_Sheriff?oldid=1042838167&ns=0 |
| foaf:depiction | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Drawing_depicting_Lawrence_Sheriff.jpg |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Lawrence_Sheriff |
| foaf:name | Lawrence Sheriff (en) |
| is dbo:foundedBy of | dbr:Rugby_School |
| is dbo:wikiPageRedirects of | dbr:Sheriff,_Lawrence dbr:Laurence_Sheriff dbr:Lawrence_Sheriffe dbr:Lawrence_Sherriff |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:Rugby_School dbr:Rugby_Street dbr:List_of_founders_of_English_schools_and_colleges dbr:List_of_English_and_Welsh_endowed_schools_(19th_century) dbr:List_of_grocers dbr:1510 dbr:1560s_in_England dbr:1567 dbr:St_Michael_and_All_Angels_Church,_Brownsover dbr:Street_names_of_Bloomsbury dbr:Brownsover dbr:History_of_Rugby,_Warwickshire dbr:Lawrence_Sheriff_School dbr:Sheriff,_Lawrence dbr:Laurence_Sheriff dbr:Lawrence_Sheriffe dbr:Lawrence_Sherriff |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Lawrence_Sheriff |
