Sir William Cockayne (Cokayne) (1561 – 20 October 1626) was a seventeenth-century merchant,

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

, and

Lord Mayor of the City of London Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...

.Record for''Sir William Cokayne'' on ''thepeerage.com''
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Life

He was the second son of William Cokayne of

Baddesley Ensor Baddesley Ensor is a village and civil parish in the district of North Warwickshire in Warwickshire, England, about three miles west of Atherstone. It runs into the village of Grendon, which forms a parish itself. History There were mining ac ...

, Warwickshire, merchant of London, sometime governor of the

Eastland Company The Eastland Company, or North Sea Company, was an English crown-chartered company, founded in 1579 to foster trade with Scandinavia and Baltic Sea states. Like the better-known Russia Company, this was an attempt by the English to challenge the ...

, by Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Medcalfe of Meriden, Warwickshire; and was descended from William Cokayne of Sturston, Derbyshire, a younger son of

Sir John Cokayne ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English language, English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist i ...

of Ashbourne in that county. Apprenticed at Christmas 1582 to his father, he was made free of the Skinners' Company by patrimony on 28 March 1590. On his father's death on 28 November 1599 he took over the running of his company. He was

sheriff of London Two sheriffs are elected annually for the City of London by the Liverymen of the City livery company, livery companies. Today's sheriffs have only nominal duties, but the historical officeholders had important judicial responsibilities. They have ...

in 1609, and alderman of

Farringdon Without __NOTOC__ Farringdon Without is the most westerly Ward of the City of London, its suffix ''Without'' reflects its origin as lying beyond the City's former defensive walls. It was first established in 1394 to administer the suburbs west of Ludgat ...

from 1609 to 1613, of

Castle Baynard Castle Baynard is one of the 25 wards of the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. Features The ward covers an irregularly shaped area, sometimes likened to a tuning fork, bounded on the east by the wards of Queenhith ...

from 1613 to 1618, of Lime Street from 1618 to 1625, and of Broad Street from 1625 till his death.

Governor of Londonderry

On 8 January 1613, Cockayne, who was already the first Governor of The Irish Society, was appointed the first

Governor of Londonderry The Governor of Londonderry and Culmore was a British military appointment. The Governor was the officer who commanded the garrison and fortifications of the city of Derry and of Culmore fort. The Governor was paid by The Honourable The Irish Soc ...

. It was due to the development directed by The Irish Society towards rebuilding and expanding the city, that it was renamed Londonderry in honour of the capital and colonisation from London. On 8 June 1616, he was dubbed a knight by

King James I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

Lord Mayor of London

During Cockayne's mayoralty (1619–20) King James visited

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

with a view to raising money to complete the spire, and was received by Cockayne in great state. A pageant entitled "The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity" was performed for Cockayne's mayoral inauguration on 29th October 1619, written by Thomas Middleton. In 1620 the marriage between Charles Howard and Cockayne's daughter Mary was celebrated. During this time, King James I frequently consulted him, both in the

privy council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

and privately.

The Cockayne project

In 1614, while serving as governor of the

of English merchants, Cockayne devised a plan to dye and dress English cloth, England's main export at the time, before shipping it abroad. Cockayne convinced James I to grant him a monopoly on cloth exports as a part of this plan, intended to increase the profits of English merchants, while boosting royal customs duties through bypassing Dutch merchants. The scheme failed as the Dutch refused to purchase finished cloth and instead engaged in a trade war with England. As a result, the English cloth trade was depressed for decades.

Later life

William Baffin William Baffin ( – 23 January 1622) was an English navigator, explorer and cartographer. He is primarily known for his attempt to find a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, during the course of which he was the first Euro ...

was equipped for one of his northern voyages by Cockayne and others of the Merchant Adventurers' Company and a harbour in

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

was named in his honour, called 'Cockin's Sound' on the Admiralty chart. He bought estates at

Denchworth Denchworth is a village and civil parish about north of Wantage. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 171. The parish ...

, Berkshire (now

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

);

Elmesthorpe Elmesthorpe (''sometimes spelt Elmersthorpe, Elmsthorpe or Aylmersthorpe'') is a village and civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England. It is situated to the south-east of Earl Shilton, near to Hinckley on the A47 road. In ...

, Leicestershire and

Rushton Hall Rushton Hall in Rushton, Northamptonshire, England, was the ancestral home of the Tresham family from 1438, when William Tresham, a veteran of the Battle of Agincourt and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster bought the estate. In the 20th centu ...

Rushton, Northamptonshire Rushton is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire. It is about north-east of Rothwell and north-west of Kettering. The parish covers and is situated on both sides of the River Ise. It contains the sites of three deserted settlements ...

which were later the homes of his descendants. He gave each of his six daughters £10,000 on marriage, leaving his son an annual rent roll of above £12,000. He died on 20 October 1626, in his sixty-sixth year, at his manor house at Comb Nevill in

Kingston, Surrey Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...

, and was buried in

Old St Paul's Cathedral Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of London, Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, ...

,"Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral" Sinclair, W. p93: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909 where his funeral sermon was preached by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

and a monument was raised to him. The grave and monument were destroyed in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

in 1666. His name appears on a modern monument in the crypt, listing important graves lost in the fire.

Family

He married Mary Morris on 22 June 1596 in London, and they had seven children together: * Charles Cockayne, 1st Viscount Cullen * Anne Cockayne (b. 1604), who married Sir Hatton Fermor, ancestor of the Earls of Pomfret * Martha Cockayne (1605–1641), who married first

John Ramsay, 1st Earl of Holderness John Ramsay, 1st Earl of Holderness (c. 1580 – January 1626), known as Sir John Ramsay between 1600 and 1606, and as the Viscount of Haddington between 1606 and 1621, was an important Scottish aristocrat of the Jacobean era, best known in ...

, second

Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey, Order of the Garter, KG, Privy Council of England, PC (1608 – 25 July 1666) was an English soldier, courtier, and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons between 1624 and 162 ...

* Jane Cockayne (b. 1609), who married Hon. James Sheffield, son of the

Earl of Mulgrave The title Earl of Mulgrave has been created twice. The first time as a title in the Peerage of England and the second time as a Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation was in the Peerage of England in 1626 for Edmund Sheffield, 3r ...

* Elizabeth Cockayne (1609–1668), who married

Thomas Fanshawe, 1st Viscount Fanshawe Thomas Fanshawe, 1st Viscount Fanshawe KB (1596 – 30 March 1665) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1661. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Following the Res ...

* Abigail Cockayne (1610–1687), who married

John Carey, 2nd Earl of Dover John Carey, 2nd Earl of Dover (1608 – 26 May 1677), styled Viscount Rochford from 1628 to 1666, was an English peer. He was the eldest son of Henry Carey, 1st Earl of Dover, and Judith, daughter of Sir Thomas Pelham, 1st Baronet. He was educated ...

* Mary Cockayne, who married

Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Nottingham Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

His widow remarried, 6 July 1630, Henry Carey, 4th Baron Hunsdon, 1st Earl of Dover, a great-great grandson of

Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire Thomas Bolina, Earl of Wiltshire, 1st Earl of Ormond, 1st Viscount Rochford KG KB (c. 1477 – 12 March 1539), of Hever Castle in Kent, was an English diplomat and politician who was the father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry ...

, father of

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

and, dying 24 December 1648, was buried with her first husband at St. Paul's.

References

;Attribution

Sources

List of Lord Mayors of London
* Astrid Friis. Alderman Cockayne's Project and the Cloth Trade. London: Milford, 1927.
J P Sommerville's 'The Rule of the Howards'
* Joel D. Benson. ''Changes and Expansion in the English Cloth Trade in the Seventeenth Century: Alderman Cockayne's Project.'' Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cockayne, William 1561 births 1626 deaths Date of birth unknown Sheriffs of the City of London 17th-century lord mayors of London Economic history of England Merchants from London 16th-century English businesspeople 17th-century English businesspeople Burials at St Paul's Cathedral