Andrew Aubrey

Andrew Aubrey was a merchant and mayor of London in 1339, 1340, and 1351. He started his career as a factor of Thomas Enfield, a successful London pepperer, who exported wool and imported spices, and in 1321 himself sued another London pepperer for refusing to pay for goods worth over £212 which Aubrey had agreed to deliver to him at the fair at Lynn. After Enfield’s death in 1328, Aubrey married his widow, Joan, who brought a substantial dower of London property, which, added to Aubrey's profits from the wool and spice trades, made him one of the top London taxpayers in 1332. His wealth is underlined by his investment in a cargo of spices and alum worth £2000 from Bruges in 1348, and by his building in the same year his own chantry chapel, and a house for its chaplains, next to St Antonin's Church.

Aubrey’s wealth propelled him into London's governing élite, first as sheriff in 1331, then successively as alderman in 1334, auditor of the city's accounts in 1337, and MP for London in 1337 and 1340. In 1347 he joined the fraternity of pepperers, later developed into the powerful London Grocers' Company.