Jack O'Newbury

"Jack of Newbury" or John Winchcombe, also known as John Smallwood (c. 1489[1] −1557) was a leading English clothier[2] from Newbury in Berkshire. When Tudor cloth-making was booming, and woollen cloth dominated English exports, John Winchcombe was producing for export on an industrial scale.

He was a leading clothier in other ways. Cloth-making was heavily regulated, and in the 1530s and 1540s Winchcombe led dozens of clothiers[3] in a national campaign to persuade King Henry VIII to change the law on the making of woollen cloth[4] – a campaign[5] which proved ultimately successful.[6]

He was the son of a clothier, but became a clothier in his own right before his father's death in 1520,[7] and combined the two businesses, taking on property which had been leased to his father.[8] He was already wealthy in the 1520s,[9] and his growing prosperity led to a significant rise in his status.

  1. ^ His portrait of 1550 describes him as aged 61; a version hangs in Newbury Town Hall.
  2. ^ In this period a "clothier" co-ordinated the different stages in the production of cloth, which was then sold in his name.
  3. ^ The National Archives (TNA) E 101/347/17 lists the names of 80 clothiers from four of the six counties involved.
  4. ^ Woollen Cloths Act 1535 (27 Hen. 8 c. 12), "An acte for the trewe making of woollen clothes."
  5. ^ Sir Harry Nicholas ed. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (1386–1542), vol. vii, 1837 p. 154; Eric Kerridge Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, Sept. 2013.
  6. ^ Hughes and Larkin (eds.) Tudor Royal Proclamations vol. 1, Proclamation 198.
  7. ^ Pollard, A.F.; Kerridge, Eric (2013). "Winchcombe, John (c. 1489–1557), clothier". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29712. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ^ J. N. Dalton The Manuscripts of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Windsor 1957.
  9. ^ TNA E 315/464 Muster Rolls for Newbury 1522.