John Slany
[4] John Slaney was born (possibly during the 1560s) at Barrow, Shropshire, near to where the family held a farm estate called "The Hem" at Linley, south of Broseley.
John Slaney was presented to the Merchant Taylors by William Atkins on 1 December 1593,[6] and was married on 15 January 1593/94, at St Martin Pomary, Ironmonger Lane in the City of London, to Margery Brodgat.
This adjoined the south-west corner of the Merchant Taylors' Hall premises (which fronted onto Threadneedle Street), and on its north side a small garden intersected awkwardly with their buildings.
The Company had entered into a sub-lease with Slaney to extend, or "jet", their upper room called "The King's Chamber" over part of his garden, and for many years they negotiated with him to make it a freehold.
[22] Issued in response to a petition by John Guy and John Slany to the Privy Council, the charter of incorporation granted by James I in April 1610 to the "Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London and Bristol for the Colony of Plantation in Newfound Land", granted to Henry, Earl of Northampton and others, named only 8 Bristol charter members but almost 40 from London.
Having chosen the site of Cuper's Cove, they spent the first winter building houses, stores, boats, and making other arrangements for the permanent continuation of the settlement.
[26] Guy returned to England leaving Master William Colston in charge, but went back for a project of exploration in June 1612, when he established connections with the native inhabitants and made a full record of their meetings, preserved in a letter of July 1612.
[28][29] Reports of mineral resources in Newfoundland encouraged Sir Percival Willoughby, whose industrial interests lay in mining, to establish ownership of a tract of land near the colony.
[25] During 1614/15 an expedition led by John Smith along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts Bay was left in charge of Thomas Hunt, who decided to augment his profits with some human traffic.
Tisquantum however escaped and made his way to England, where he lived "a good time"[30] apparently as a free man, worked with John Slaney at the Cornhill, and learned some English.
Becoming a Livery Assistant in 1612, John was named a charter member and one of the original twenty-four Assistants of the Society, in the 1613 Charter of King James I to the Society for the Plantation of Ulster (a consortium of livery companies), in which Merchant Taylors Robert Jenkinson, John Gore and Mathias Springer (and William Freeman, Haberdasher) were also among those named,[36] and from whose number Mathias Springham was chosen to accompany Alderman George Smith[37] to survey the province in 1613.
[38] In 1613 John Weld (Esq) (brother of Humphrey Slaney's wife) purchased the office of Town Clerk of London (holding it first until 1642, the year of his knighthood[39]), and in June 1616 he bought the manor and estate of Willey, Shropshire, adjacent to Barrow, from Sir Francis, son of Roland Lacon of Kinlet for £7000.
In April 1621 Humphrey Slaney's eldest daughter Dorothy was married to William Clobery of St Martin Pomary,[43] drawing together a business relationship between the two men.
[45] It therefore fell to him, as Master, to receive the bequests of John Harrison,[47] which included £500 towards the project of completing the Merchant Taylors' School at Great Crosby, and to negotiate with Sir Richard Molyneux (1st bart.)
