Thomas Myddelton, Lord Mayor of London

Today, Thomas Myddelton (c1550-1631) is pretty much forgotten in favour of his younger brother Hugh of New River fame. However, Thomas was pretty important and successful in his own right: knighted by James I, he became Lord Mayor of London in 1613 and an MP for the city in 1624.

Thomas was originally apprenticed as a grocer but became a wealthy merchant as well as an influential alderman. He traded in sugar and built a refinery in Mincing Lane, was one of the founders of the East India Company and had invested in Drake's and Raleigh's privateering expeditions (many of these activities we would consider ethically dubious today, but were a good way to gain money and influence then). Much of his investment would have been funded by his position as surveyor of the customs and excise: it was accepted that monies collected in this post could be used for private speculation until they were due to be handed to the exchequer.


Myddelton divided his time between London and Wales. He purchased Chirk Castle in Denbighshire for £4,800 in 1595 and converted it from a mediaeval fortress to a comfortable Tudor home. Later, he gave it to his son as a wedding present. Other contacts with his home country included the provisions of loans to hundreds of fellow Welsh people. He also funded the publication of religious books in Welsh, including the first portable bible.

Image: Chirk Castle by Prichardson on wikipedia.

Dr Richard Price of Newington Green

Newington Green Unitarian Church is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use. Among its famous worshippers was 'mother of feminism' Mary Wollstonecraft; her friend and mentor Dr Richard Price was the church's most prominent minister.

Price was born in Llangeinor, Glamorgan in 1723 and came to London in 1740 to study; from 1758 he was preacher at Newington Green. He put forward politically radical ideas in his preaching. In 1789, as the Bastille fell, he preached a pro-revolutionary sermon On Love of Country. He similarly supported the American Revolution, arguing that while the monarchy was legitimate in Britain because it had the consent of the people (in the 1688 Bill of Rights), there was no such consent from the Americans or French.

Price was not only a great promoter of liberty and equality and political and religious radical. He also invented actuarial life tables, still used today, and advised America and France on their financial systems. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, had the Freedom of the City of London, and received an honorary degree from Yale University.

When Price died in 1791, he was honoured by a national day of mourning in France.