Thomas Seckford
The possible identification as Seckford was made in the caption to an engraving by George Vertue after the original painting,[10] published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1747 for the Vetusta Monumenta, noting that the figure is likely to be the Surveyor because he wears his tall hat in the presence of the Master.
[15] At the time of his death in 1505, the benefactor's grandfather Thomas Seckford held Seckford Hall manor and the advowson of Little Bealings from Sir John Wingfield, Kt., and lands and estates in the parishes mentioned above, principally from Sir William Willoughby, Lord de Willoughby and from John Blenerhassett of Loudham, Suffolk (an historic estate in Pettistree[16]).
In 1540 he entered Gray's Inn: his name in the register of admissions appears alongside that of Cheke's most eminent pupil William Cecil,[25] the future Lord Burghley, with whom he worked at various times during his life.
[28] At the start of Mary's reign, early in 1554, Seckford obtained a minor post in the Duchy of Lancaster, and this is taken to account for his entry into parliament for the duchy seat of Ripon in November 1554; similarly, the patronage of William Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby of Parham, is supposed to underlie Seckford's return to parliament as MP for Orford in 1555 and 1558.
"[33] He and Dr. Walter Haddon were almost immediately appointed Elizabeth's two Masters in Ordinary of the Court of Requests, a role which Seckford held until his death.
These officers, assistants to the Lord Privy Seal (Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1558–1571) as chief Judge, dealt with poor men's causes brought by petition before Elizabeth as she journeyed around her realm.
In a commission of October 1560 he is mentioned as a Doctor of both laws, having sat with Archbishop Matthew Parker, Sir Anthony Cooke and others in a Final Decree.
[39] The southern prospect, illustrated by John Ogilby for his Ichnographical Survey of Ipswich (by which time it belonged to Sir William Barker),[40] shows a building of two principal storeys with five bays of Tudor fenestration, the first, third and fifth rising to gabled attic windows above, the whole flanked by a pair of four-storey towers with paired windows in each storey, and pyramidally-roofed with dormers above, crowned with onion-shaped pinnacles.
The central three bays overshot a loggia in the ground floor of five round arches, from which a view south, across a formal garden and (beyond the river Orwell) towards Stoke, was afforded.
It was (and partly remains, though much renovated, reformed and embellished) a tall south-facing two-storey structure with gabled dormers above (four survive), with stucco-finished brick mouldings and mullions.
The Seckford coat of arms over the south porch is dated 1564, but the "capital mansion" at the priory (i.e. principal seat of the estate) itself may have been constructed before that.
[43] Seckford also built the nearby Woodbridge Shire Hall, or Sessions-Hall, when the quarter-sessions were removed from Melton, as a two-storey structure with open market below (the arches of which have since been infilled), and a room above which he gave to the County in perpetuity.
[50] Her second husband was Sir Martin Bowes (died 1566), one of the great Lords Mayors in the last years of Henry VIII, destroyer of the monuments in the London Greyfriars,[51] and a notable survivor during the reign of Queen Mary.
[59][60][3][61] In the interim between these two acquisitions he had served in several important commissions and parliamentary committees,[3] beginning with an oyer and terminer for Surrey in which Edmund and Arthur Pole were tried for high treason.
[3][63] In 1575 he was appointed "Bailiff, collector and receiver of rents of all manors, messuages and lands which had belonged to the Priory or Hospital of St John of Jerusalem but now in the possession of the Crown in the City of London and the County of Middlesex,"[64] and it is suggested that this position may have facilitated the improvement of his Clerkenwell estate.
It was by the encouragement and considerable expense of Thomas Seckford that the first County Maps of England produced from an actual Survey were undertaken by Christopher Saxton, during the 1570s.
[66] The engraved plates of the completed atlas (dedicated to the Queen), each of which bears the royal arms and those of Thomas Seckford as patron, range in date from 1574 to 1579.
By her patent of 1577, Elizabeth granted to Saxton the sole rights to produce maps and atlases for ten years, and introduced the project in this way:"Whereas Christopher Saxton, servaunt to our trustie and wel beloved Thomas Sekeford esquier, master of requestes unto us, hath already (at the greate coste, expenses and charges of his said master) traveyled throughe the greateste parte of this oure realme of England, and hathe to the greate pleasure and comoditie of us, and our lovinge subjectes, uppon the perfecte viewe of a greate nomber of the severall counties, and sheires of oure said realme, drawen oute, and sett forthe, diverse trew and pleasaunt mappes, chartes or platts of the same counties, together with the citties, townes, villages, and ryvers therein conteyned, vearie diligentlie and exactlie donne; and entendithe, yf God graunte hym lief, further to travell therein, throughout all the residue of oure said realme, and so from tyme to tyme to cause the same platts, and discriptions, to be well and fayre ingraven..."[67]Saxton obtained the services of various engravers, including the Dutch artist Remigius Hogenberg and the Englishman Augustine Ryther (died 1593), so that the work became not only a vast source of information, but also a celebration of English cartography and engraving.
As Master of Requests, Seckford is named in 1581 in company with Valentine Dale and David Lewis,[42] and records his title on the Bealings memorial of 1583.
In 1583 Thomas Seckford, then aged 67, dedicated a memorial to them in that church, with a handsome display of heraldry, to embrace them in the celebration of his own 25 years of service as Master of Requests.
It is a composite wall plaque with twin fluted pilasters in flat relief at either side in pale limestone, rising from a register ornamented with panelling beneath, centrally recessed, and with an entablature above bearing inscriptions, surmounted by a projecting pediment with richly dentillated cornices.
[74] At the centre of this composition is a large rectangular carved and painted panel displaying an escutcheon of the arms of Thomas Seckford in their usual quartering, in a strapwork compartment enclosing three rosettes or, the helm above crested with the talbot ermine, among foliate mantling.
[77] A finely-illuminated folio of Ordinances and statutes made by me, Thomas Sekford esq; the 10th of July, 1587, for the election, admission, exercises, expulsion, and government of 13 poor persons placed in my new-erected alms-houses in Woodbred, in the county of Suffolk appeared in a library sale of 1763.
The men received a pension paid quarterly, and were provided with cloth for new robes annually, and a silver badge displaying the Seckford arms, so that they were identifiable as they went about the town.
Tippling and playing at cards or gaming were forbidden, as was swearing or cursing at one another, and all kinds of lewdness and fornication, which were punishable first by fines deducted from the pensions, and ultimately by expulsion.
[77] Seckford's wife Elizabeth died at Clerkenwell in November 1586, and was buried in the vault of her second husband Sir Martin Bowes at St Mary Woolnoth church.
[81] Thomas died at Clerkenwell 19 December 1587, aged 72, and was first buried there: but in accordance with his will his body was afterwards transferred to a vault in a chapel at the north-east side of St. Mary's Church in Woodbridge.
His coat of arms, as a quartering with helm and crest within a strapwork oval, appears in original glass in the west window of the north aisle.
The reverse showed an escutcheon of Seckford's single arms (ermine on a fess gules 3 escallops argent) with the legend "AT WHOSE EXPENCE COUNTY MAPS WERE FIRST ENGRAVED 1574.
In the film About a Boy starring Hugh Grant the main character, Will, lives in a flat in No.1 Sekforde Street (actual research shows the temporary movie-set doorway was constructed at 16–18 St James's Walk, the same glazed-brick building but around the corner.)
