William Pole (died 1587)

William Pole (1515–1587), Esquire, was a lawyer and speculator in church lands following the Dissolution of the Monasteries who served as MP for Lyme Regis in 1545, Bridport in 1553 and for West Looe in 1559.

His full pedigree, showing his descent from the ancient family of "Pool" of Pool Hall, Wirral, Cheshire is inscribed on a brass plaque on his monument erected by his son the antiquary in the Pole Chapel in Colyton Church in Devon: "Here lieth the body of William Pole late of Shute, Esq., deceased who maryd Kateryn daught.

[3] The senior line of the Cheshire Poles had held the manor of Pool since the 13th century and remained seated there until the early 1820s.

The east front of the house faced the River Mersey, and the site was purchased by Bowater Mersey Mills Paper Limited, paper manufacturers, which constructed a factory on the site in 1921, now known as "North Road, Ellesmere Port".

The clock which once occupied a gable of the house was saved and is now situated in the Boat Museum of Ellesmere Port.

[6] In 1562 he acquired from Petre a lease for 1,200 years of the Shute estate, the freehold of which was not purchased until 1788 by his descendant the 6th Pole baronet.

By coincidence the Pole family of Ford in Devon were distantly descended from Alexander Bonville, a younger brother of Sir William II Bonville (d.1407), Sheriff of Somerset, Dorset and Devon, who built the mediaeval hall house at Shute in 1380.

Chief Justice of England, lately the wief of William Pole Esquier the Elder unto whom shee brought foorth William Pole, knight, and Dorothe the wife first of Thomas Erle Esquier, secondly of Walter Vaughan, knight, which were liveing and Alexander, Hugh, Richard, Arthur and Amy which died younge.