John Smyth

The only son of Alice and Matthew Smyth, John achieved outstanding success as a merchant and thus completed the rise of the family to the position of landed gentry.

His ledger or account book survives for the years 1538–50 and gives details of his many fruitful trading ventures. He traded in woollen cloth, purchased in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somerset, lead from the Mendip hills, hides, leather, timber, and wheat. Numerous cargoes were exported to France and Spain in his own ship The Trinity, which returned with wine, iron, woad, alum, and oil. The impression of Smyth which emerges from his ledger is of an able, hard-working, public-spirited man.

He served as sheriff of Bristol during 1532–3 and as mayor in 1547–8 and 1554–5. As mayor he was involved in the acquisition of former chantry lands and property by the corporation, purchases from which Bristol was to derive a substantial income in the future. He invested in extensive lands in north Somerset and south Gloucestershire, among them many former possessions of local monasteries and chantries. By far the most important of these investments was in 1545 when he bought an estate at Long Ashton, near Bristol, from Sir Thomas Arundell for £920. This included the large manor house at Ashton Court with its deer park and much of the surrounding land.

By the time of his death in 1556 Smyth was a wealthy man, with a large estate, and his probate inventory lists goods and money to the value of £2263. He evidently regarded himself primarily as a Bristol merchant, and continued until his death to live in his merchant's house in Small Street rather than the manor house at Ashton Court.