Thrale history

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of 1697 shows that George Bassil of Hatfield and his wife Elizabeth who was a Wethered, had been admitted upon Robert Thrale's death and one of the No Mans Land Thrales was a great friend of a later Bassil.

Thus the story turns to the most affluent, yet the last, of the line. John Thrale, although inheriting Fairfolds before his twenty-first birthday, surprisingly left Sandridge to seek his fortune, in which he succeded. Whether he found happiness is another thing. He was obviously a man of resource, energy and courage, but his story before and after his death is marred by continual and unhappy conflict. One of many chancery proceedings tells of his early career in that when thirty four years old he had declared that he had been manager of a farm in Barbados and during the term of his employment he had sold to Jonothan Woodhouse goods belonging to the farm to the value of £11,586 in the name of the owners John Strode and Patrick Trant. At the time of this deposition in 1684 John was living at St. Giles, Cripplegate, calling himself a merchant.³³ Bearing in mind the value of eleven and a half thousand pounds in the mid seventeenth century, John was already by that time in big business!

In 1673 he had married Margaret Chaplin, supposedly member of the same family as Sir Francis Chaplin, Lord Mayor of London in 1677 and a family mentioned by Pepys. By 1686 he was living in heart of London at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, for in that year his daughter Abbyrebeca was baptised and next year buried 'in ye mdell ile ner ye second pew north ward'. It is of interest to note that the parish of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey is a tiny one, barely covering the area now occupied by the College of Arms! In 1699 the son of John Daviss 'at Mr. Thraille's, Distaf Lane' was baptised. By quirk of fate, Richard Thrale the bookseller, already mentioned, had married in 1634 in the parish immediately adjacent, that of St. Mildred Bread Street, whilst a later No Mans Land Thrale was to marry at St. Benet's Paul's Wharf.

Appearing in the Livery as Citizen and Brewer in 1696, he was the same year a signatory of the Association Oath Roll, endorsed 'The Company of Brewers; Association Entered into the 27th of March 1696'. The oath illustrates the political situation of the time for it reads, 'Whereas there has been a horrid and detestable conspiracy formed and carried on by Papists and other wicked and Traiterous persons for Assassinateing his Majesties Royal Person in order to Encourage an Invasion from France to Subvert our Religion Laws and Libertie Wee whose names are hereunto Subscribed doe heartily sincerely and solemnly profess

Footnotes

33. C24/1084.↩︎