Notes

The noted Town Clerk of London. He founded The City of London School. SEE 1068046, ITEM 2, in the British Film Area. A considerable amount of information is available on JOHN the Younger or Junior. He married, but died childless. This John Carpenter is frequently distinguished in documents as 'John Carpenter, junior,' and also as Jenkin or Jenken, a diminutive of the name of John. He was a MP (Member of Parliment) from London in 1425.

SEE: "Memoir of the Life and Times of John Carpenter, Town Clerk of London in the reigns of Henry Fifth and Sixth." By Thomas Brewer in 1856, London. Part of this Memoir is in the Carpenter Memorial (1898) starting on page 3. Brewer found no record of this John's life until his election as Town Clerk or Common Clerk of the City of London on April 20, 1417, two years after the Battle of Agincourt. The exemption mentioned on page 14 suggests that John Carpenter had been in the City's service 'from the time of his youth,' and he was certainly clerk to John Marchaunt, his predecessor as Town Clerk.

WILL: A copy of his will is in the Carpenter Memorial. Pages 12-17. Will dated 8 March 1441 and proved 12 May 1442. The City of London School claims his death as 12 May 1442, it was when the will was proved - after his death. NOTE: John Carpenter, Junior the Town Clerk of London was Executor of Dick Whittington's Will, He was a Member of Parliament. John Carpenter was a MP also.

SEE: "THE CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL" By A. E. Douglas-Smith, 2nd Edition, 1965, Oxford. This John Carpenter was one of 3 John Carpenters who were prominent in this time period. One was his elder brother named John Carpenter, sometimes known as John the Elder, this was a not uncommon medieval practice. The other John Carpenter was Warden of St. Anthony's Hospital, Rector of St. Mary's Magdalen, and later Bishop of Worcester. SEE NOTE Below. Per the above record, John Carpenter the younger's will was made in his 70th year. This indicates his birth about 1371/1372. He would have been Town Clerk at about age 45, which seems reasonable.

MISC: Author of first book of English Common Law "Liber Albus". Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis; Liber albus, Liber custumarum, et Liber Horn See: Riley, Henry T., and John Carpenter, eds. Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis; Liber Albus, Liber Custumarum, Et Liber Horn. 3 Vols. in 4. Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores (Rolls Series), 12. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859-1862. OCLC: 26230401 Abstract: Contains documents illustrating the legal, social and constitutional history of London during the 13th and 14th centuries. Contents: Vol. 1, Liber albus, compiled AD 1419 Vol. 2, Liber custumarum, with extracts from the Cottonian ms. Claudius. D. II. Vol. 3, Translation of the Anglo-Norman passages in Liber albus, glossaries, appendices, and index. http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=issn%3A2623-0401+OR+no%3A26230401&qt=advanced Related Subjects: Customary law -- England -- London. | Anglo-Norman dialect -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc. | English language -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc. Cite: City of London (England), Henry T. Riley, and John Carpenter. Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis: Liber albus, Liber custumarum, et Liber Horn. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859.

He was a leader in education in early England and founded the City of London School for Poor Children. He was also a member of Parliament from London. He owned over 300 buildings and had a fish pond or reservoir on top of his own house. He willed these to his borther. John the younger obtained letter of patent from the Crown (Henry VI) dated 3 Dec. 18 (1418?) exempting him for the whole of his life from all military and civil duties whatsoever, among which as included election as member of Parliment and receiving the Honour of Knighthood. SEE: Carpenter Chronicles, Vol. 26, (Sept. 1996) note by John Patching. Please note that John the younger had to earn his Knighthood and Arms for Service. His brother received his Knighthood and Arms from his father.

AF has birth dates reversed 1372 instead of 1364.

NOTE: The City of London School for Poor Children was built in 1837 and remodeled in 1896 as mentioned in the Carpenter Memorial by Amos B. Carpenter. However, it was damaged during World War Two. The statue of John Carpenter was damaged and now (Nov. 1998) "resides in a prominent position on a plinth high up on the wall of the School's glassed ceiling atrium standing over the door to the balcony of our Great Hall. In this position 'He' also 'sees' the full splendour of St. Paul's Dome." Per the Head Porter - B. Darling, MISM of City of London School. Located on Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 3AL. Mr. Darling was so kind to send a couple of pictures of this remarkable ancestor. Please note: Most records give the date of the foundation of the School as 1442, but the school was not actually opened until 1837.

COAT OF ARMS: THE CARPENTER FAMILY OF ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. By J. Hatton Carpenter. FROM: Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Vol. 16 Number 2, April 1925. Page 60-70. Partial excerpt ... "The family bore arms, which in heraldic parlance reads as follows: "Paly of six, argent and gules, on a chevron azure, 3 cross crosslets or." Motto "Per acuta belli" (through In a the asperities of war). The 3 cross crosslets denote an ancestor in be Crusades or who was a Crusader. ... In a letter dated 7 August, 1907, from Rev. William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop Ripon, Yorkshire, afterwards a Canon of Westminster and chaplain to the reigning sovereign of England, the writer was informed that he, the Bishop, bore be Hereford Arms, and that Sir Noel Paton explained to him that originally the crest was a round-handled sword, which in drawing became shortened, until nothing but the cross and globe are left beneath it. These arms were used by John Carpenter, town clerk of London, who died in 1442." John Boyd Carpenter 1929???-1992. Archibald Boyd Carpenter 1903???. William Boyd Carpenter (Rev) brother to Archibald???. Archibald Boyd Carpenter 1873. Archibald Boyd Carpenter 1843??. ???

E-MAIL: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 From: "Tony & Gill M Carpenter" <chipps@chipps.screaming.net> (Tony Carpenter provided the following data).

"The City School Of London" by A.E.Douglas-Smith, that is in my possession.

PART I THE FOUNDER C. 1372-1442 CHAPTER I JOHN CARPENTER THE date of the foundation of the City of London School is always given as 1442, but the School was not actually opened till 1837. The explanation of the earlier date is that the City of London School was established as a result of prolonged inquiry into a famous bequest of John Carpenter, a Town Clerk of London who died in 1442, and the eventual decision of the Corporation of London to apply it to the endowment of a school. John Stow, in his Survey of London (1598), thus records the nature of the actual bequest: 'He gave tenements to the Citye for the finding and bringing up of foure pooré men's children with meate, drinke, apparell, learning at the schooles in the universities, &c., until they be preferred, and then others in their places for ever.' By a tradition dating at latest from 1843, the Captain of the School every year on Prize Day delivers a declamation in the Founder's praise. Apart from vague memories of these speeches, probably most Old Citizens have derived their knowledge of John Carpenter from casual glances at the statue on Main Staircase, with Liber Albus in its hands, and the inscription beneath. Further research on the life of Carpenter remains to be done, and may, it is hoped, eventually be published. The bulk of what is at present known of him is still to be found in the Memoir of the Life and Times of John Carpenter produced in 1856 by Thomas Brewer, the first School Secretary. End Note:- There is another "Carpenters Charity" funded by the Will of William Carpenter 1650. of Pembridge. Tony Carpenter.

E-MAIL: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 From: Twonow@aol.com To: jrcrin001@cox.net The following was in the London Encyclopaedia. Thought you might like to have a copy. Tom and Suzette (Carpenter) Galloway. The following is from The LONDON Encyclopaedia,Edited by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, published in 1995 by Macmillan Reference Books, Page 181. City of London School   Queen Victoria Street, EC4  John Carpenter, Town Clerk of London, who died in 1442, leftproperty in his will to provide income to maintain in perpetuity â0four boys born within the City of London who shall be called in the vulgar tongue' "Carpenter's Children" to assist at divine service in the choir of the [GUILDHALL]chapel aforesaid on festival days, and to study at schools most convenient for them on ferial days.' For many years these 'Carpenter's children' boarded in a college adjacent to the chapel until this was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536.For the next three centuries they continued to be housed, fed and clothed bythe Carpenter bequest and educated at various London schools. By the early 19th century the endowment had so increased in value that the CORPORATION OF LONDON,led by Warren Stormes Hale, first Chairman of the Schools Committee, and later LORD MAYOR, decided to build its own school, thereby using the bequest for wider educational purposes. In 1834 an Act of Parliament permitted the establishment of the City of London School, which thereafter received substantial financial assistance from the Carpenter bequest and still today provides for Carpenter scholars. The school was opened in 1837 on a site in MILK STREET off CHEAPSIDE, but grew so rapidly that in 1883 it moved to buildings on a site onVICTORIA EMBANKMENT. In 1986 it moved again into new buildings on a riverside site on Paul's Walk a quarter of a mile east of BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE. The schoolis governed and financed (with the aid of the Carpenter bequest) by the CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF LONDON. It is an independent school administered by a Board of Governors appointed by the COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL. In 1991 there were 843 pupils. Distinguished old boys include H.H. Asquith, the prime minister; Lord Evans, the physician; Sir Sidney Lee, the biographer; Arthur Rackham, the artist; Sir Walter Raleigh, the critic; the writers, Kingsley Amis, James Leasor and Julian Barnes; the humorist, Dennis Norden; and the cricketer, J.M. Brearley.

City of London School At the east end of the Victoria Embankment, east of John Carpenter Street, in Farringdon Ward Without (P.O. Directory). Founded in 1835, and erected on the north side of Honey Lane Market, partly in Cheap Ward and partly in Cripplegate Ward Within. Removed to the Embankment, 1878-80. Part of the income of the school is derived from certain tenements bequeathed by John Carpenter in the reign of Henry V. for the education and maintenance of poor children in schools, etc. New building designed 1878. Architects, Messrs. Emanuel and Davis. In Rocque the site is occupied by Alexander's Yard and the wharves, etc., in O.S. by the City of London Gas Works. In Horwood by the New River Office and Yard.

From: British History Online Source: City of London School. A Dictionary of London, Henry H Harben (1918). URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=1909 Date: 17/11/2004 © Copyright 2003 University of London & History of Parliament Trust

From: "Tim Stowell" <tstowell@chattanooga.net> To: <carpenter@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 12:05 AM Subject: [CARPENTER] John Carpenter - bio JOHN CARPENTER (ca 1370-ca 1441) town clerk of London, son of Richard Carpenter, a citizen of London, and Christina, his wife, was probably born about 1370, and educated for the profession of law.

On 20 April 1417 he was chosen town clerk or common clerk of the city, after having held an inferior post in the town clerk's office for some years previously. Carpenter was well acquainted with John Marchaunt, his predecessor, and was one of the executors of Marchaunt's will in 1421.

As town clerk Carpenter frequently addressed letters to Henry V on behalf of the corporation, and very soon after his appointment began a compilation of the laws, customs, privileges, and usages of the city, extracted from the archives of the corporation. This important work, which was entitled the "Liber Albus," was completed in November, 1419, and was printed from the Guildhall manuscript for the first time in the Rolls Series in 1859.

Carpenter was the intimate friend of the far-famed Sir Richard Whittington, who was lord mayor for the third time in 1419, and as one of the executors of Whittington's will was busily employed in 1423 and the following years in carrying out Whittington's charitable bequests.

On 23 Feb. 1431 Carpenter and his wife, whose Christian name was Katharine, received from the corporation an eighty years' lease of property in St. Peter, Cornhill, at a nominal rental; on 20 Nov. 1436 he was elected one of the representatives of the city in Parliament; on 14 Dec. following he was granted a patent of exemption from all summonses to serve on juries or to perform other petty municipal duties.

In 1438 Carpenter resigned the town clerkship; during his twenty-one years of office he was sometimes styled 'secretary,' a designation which no other town clerk is known to have borne.

On 26 Sept. 1439 Carpenter was re-elected member of Parliament for the city; but he had now resolved to retire from public life.

On 3 Dec. following he obtained from Henry VI letters patent exempting him from all military and civil duties. He was thus relieved of the necessity of attending Parliament and of receiving the honour of knighthood.

On 10 June 1440 the mayor and aldermen voted Carpenter a gratuity of twenty marks, and in 1441 he defended the sheriffs in a lawsuit preferred against them by the dean of the collegiate church of St. Martin-le-Grand.

In the same year Carpenter, cojointly with another John Carpenter, afterwards bishop of Worcester, and John Somerset, chronicler of the exchequer, received from the crown a grant of the manor of Theobalds in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.

He probably died in 1441. On 8 March of that year Carpenter drew up a will disposing of his personal property, and a copy of this document is still extant. From it we learn that Carpenter lived in the parish of St. Peter, Cornhill, in whose church he desired to be buried.

He left large sums of money, together with his jewels and household furniture, to his wife, and similar gifts to his brothers, Robert and John, and their children.

To the religious foundations in and near London he also bequeathed gifts of money, and the terms of his bequest indicate that he was a lay brother of the convent of the Charterhouse, London, and of the fraternity of the sixty priests of London.

To his friends Reginald Pecock, William Clewe, John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester and other ecclesiastics, he left most of his books, which included Richard de Bury's 'Philobiblon' and some of Aristotle's works translated into Latin.

Of his landed property no account is extant, and no mention is made of it in the will that now survives. But he undoubtedly owned large estates in the city, and made a careful disposition of them.

Stow states in his 'Survey of London,' p. 110, that Carpenter 'gave tenements to the citye for the finding and bringing up of foure poor men's children with meat, drink, apparell, learning at the schooles in the universities, &c., until they be professed, and then others in their places for ever.'

This benefaction was duly executed by the corporation with little change for nearly four centuries. In the earliest extant book of the city accounts, dated 1633, a list of Carpenter's lands and tenements appointed for educational purposes is given, and the rental of the property then amounted to 49L. 13s. 4d., and the charges upon it to no more than 20L. 13s. 4d.

In the course of the following century the discrepancy between the two sides of the account increased rapidly. In 1823 the charity commissioners pointed out that only a fraction of the proceeds of the benefaction was applied according to the testator's wishes; in 1827 the court of common council increased the sum to be applied to the education and maintenance of four poor boys, and in 1833 it was resolved to apply 900L. per annum from the Carpenter bequest to the foundation and endowment of a new school and to the establishment of eight Carpenter scholarships for the assistance of pupils at the school and universities.

This school, called the City of London School, was erected on the site of Honey Lane Market, and opened in 1837; it was removed in 1883 to the Thames Embankment. A statue of Carpenter as the virtual founder was placed on the principal staircase in the old building, and has been removed to the new. Orations in Carpenter's honour are given by the boys on the annual speechdays.

[Thomas Brewer's Memoir of the Life and Times of John Carpenter (London, 1856) gives very full particulars. Carpenter's Liber Albus, edited by H. T. Riley (1859), forms the first volume of the Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis in the Rolls Series. Translations of the Norman French passages are given in the third volume of the Munimenta, together with a long letter by Carpenter (dated 20 Feb. 1432, and printed form Guildhall Letterbook K), describing Henry VI's entry into the city of London after his return from France.]

Stow's "Survey of London" - http://www.londonancestor.com/stow/stow-menu.htm

Richard de Bury's "Philobiblon" - http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/debury.html

Thomas Brewer's "Memoir of the Life and Times of John Carpenter" - http://tinyurl.com/3y32hc

Carpenter's "Liber Albus", edited by H. T. Riley (1859) - http://tinyurl.com/33kynk

One blurb from the White Book translated from Latin:

The book that once was white is white no more; Made black with grease, and thumb'd its page o'er. Then, while it still exists, transcribe each page; Once gone, 'tis lost to every future age. And if so lost---some fault of ours, 'tis true-- Ah me! thou gem of greatest price, Adieu!

• These lines are inserted in the fly-leaf of the

"Liber Albus," in a hand probably of the earlier half of the sixteenth century.

Tim Stowell tstowell@chattanooga.net Chattanooga, TN

MORE: Folio cclvii b. Nota delib'a cionem cujus dam scripti per Comitis sam Arundell. Be it remembered that a certain writing, enclosed in a box, touching an annuity of 100 marks granted by Beatrice, Countess of Arundell, (fn. 9) to Margaret, wife of Rouland Lentehale, Knt, for the lifetime of the said Countess, was delivered by the same to John Hille, the Chamberlain, on the 13th July, 8 Henry V. [A.D 1420], to be delivered by him to the said Margaret, provided the said Rouland and Margaret, or either of them, before the Feast of St Michael [29 Sept.], A.D 1421, rendered the said Beatrice secure in law, as her counsel may direct, for her lifetime in all possessions whatsoever in England and Wales held by her to herself and the heirs of her body and of the body of Thomas, late Earl of Arundell, and also in her possessions by dower, (fn. 10) failing which the said document is to be returned to her.

From: 'Folios ccli - cclx: Sept 1420 - ', Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: I: 1400-1422 (1909), pp. 243-252. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33697 Date accessed: 22 April 2009. 9 An illegitimate daughter of John, King of Portugal, and wife of Thomas Fitz-Alan, 11th Earl of Arundel, who died without issue in 1415. Among his possessions was Pultney's Inn, in the City, which his widow made over in 1429 to John Carpenter, "clerk of the commonalty of the City," and others. Hust. Roll 158 (14).

From: 'Folios ccli - cclx: Sept 1420 - ', Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: I: 1400-1422 (1909), pp. 243-252. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33697 Date accessed: 22 April 2009.

Sources