Sheriff of London 1452-1453

Sir Richard George Alley 10 January 1438 - 10 January 1475

Our 14th Great-Grandfather

Born and Died in the county of Buckinghamshire (Bucks), England

Note: I need to do a bit more of a deep dive into his dates.

I don't think that a six year old boy would have been a city auditor.

I do believe that the lineage from Sir Richard to us is solid, though.

The title of Sheriff, or “Shire Reeve”, evolved during the Anglo-Saxon period of English history; the Reeve was the representative of the King in a city, town or shire, responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing the law.

In the year 31 of Henry VI (1452-53) Richard Alley became Sheriff of London, along with a man named Richard Lee. The mayor at the time was Godfrey Fielding.

Not a good time to become involved with tax collection. Taxes were so unpopular that in 1450, the Jack Cade Rebellion had led to a bloody battle on London Bridge.

London's Guildhall (shown here) would have been used by Sir Richard as the city's sheriff. The current building began construction in 1411 and completed in 1440.

It was a brand new building at the time of our grandfather Richard’s tenure as sheriff in 1452. He would have used it as a location to collect taxes and conduct criminal trials. The great hall is believed to be on a site of an earlier guildhall (one possible derivation for the word "guildhall" is the Anglo-Saxon "gild", meaning payment, with a "gild-hall" being where citizens would pay their taxes).

More of his background

In 1451 he had the designation of Master Skinner.

He was part of the Skinners' Guild.

He is shown as a city auditor from 1444-46 and again in 1456-58.

On the 2nd of August in 1451 Sir Richard began his first alderman post for the Farringdon Without ward. Farringdon was a very large ward on the outskirts of London and had two gates crucial to the city's defense, Ludgate and Newgate. During medieval times, many goldsmiths and tanners were located within it.

Later he was an alderman of London's Dowgate ward during 1456-60. Today that small ward is known as the historic and financial centre of the City of London.

I have not found a document to tell me when/how he received the "Sir" title. Yet.

Richard was alive during the War of the Roses and lived during the reign of kings Henry VI (Lancastrian) and Edward IV (Yorkist).

The Great Hall today

For today's blog I looked at Ancestry, Family Tree, and various online articles referencing old English documents showing Richard Alley as the Sheriff of London.

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