William Sevenock

William Sevenock came from Sevenoaks, a market town about twenty miles southwest of London in the county of Kent. He was born in a dramatic period followed by the ravages of the Black Death which wiped out one-third of the population of southeastern England from 1349 until 1352. Nothing is known about his family.

His guardian, a small landowner, provided him a basic education and sent him to an apprenticeship to a London ironmonger. The Young Sevenock was educated since apprentices were expected to be able to read and write, and perform simple arithmetic. In 1497 he paid a premium of £10 to become a member of the Grocers’ Company. In the Middle Ages, the grocer was a wholesaler who traded in items that were sold by weight rather than by the piece or by volume. They held an effective monopoly on the import of high-value items like spices for which accurate weighing was critical. They also traded in drugs, dyes and fruit.

For the needs of work, Sevenock should have had enough capital to rent warehouse space and purchase sufficient stock of “groceries” to supply city retailers and merchants traveling to country fairs. His business grew rapidly and in 1404 he was listed as the owner of a ship that attacked Prussian ships between England and Zeeland.

His commercial success was accompanied with the rise in the civic life of London. He became a warden of the Grocers’ Company in 1404, an alderman in 1411, sheriff in 1412, a member of the London Commons in 1417, and Lord Mayor in 1418. All of these positions required that the appointed person possess and expend substantial sums for funding civic ceremonies.

Sevenock gave £100 to King Henry V’s second expedition to Flanders in 1417 as a secured loan. When the Grocers’ Company received a royal charter and began building a hall in 1427, he contributed £40 to the effort.

At the time of his death, his estate included a wharf and numerous commercial buildings, some bought directly from profits in trade, while some were acquired as a security interest.

His most famous legacy is the Sevenoaks Grammar School in his native village in Kent which still operates in the 21 first century as a prestigious public school, and the oldest secular secondary school in England and one of the oldest in the world.

The majority of his estate he left to the poor people of his native community.