William Mead (merchant)
William Mead (1628-1713) would be a London merchant, along with a prominent early Quaker, connected by marriage to George Fox.
Mead grew to become a wealthy linen draper of Fenchurch Street within the Town of London, and person in the organization of Merchant Taylors. He was captain of the train-band, before joining the Quakers in 1670. On 14 August of this year he was present in a crowded meeting in Gracechurch Street, where William Penn was the preacher both were arrested and dedicated to Newgate Gaol.
The trial of Penn and Mead, where they defended the best of free worship, started in the Old Bailey on 1 September 1670. These were charged with disturbing the peace by unlawfully assembling together by agreement, and pleaded not liable. The jury pronounced on 5 September that Penn wasn’t responsible for disobeying the law, which Mead wasn’t guilty at basically jury and prisoners were dedicated to Newgate. Penn’s father, Mister William Penn, was mentioned by Gerard Croese to possess compensated fines to secure their release. An in depth account from the trial, underneath the title The People’s Ancient and merely Liberties asserted, was printed (London, 1670) by Penn and Mead, which is also related in more detail by Frederick Besse in the Assortment of the Sufferings of those known as Quakers.
The handling from the trial gave rise to Bushel’s Situation. Thomas Vere, the jury foreman, compensated an excellent and it was released. Edward Bushel(l), certainly one of several four jurors who disputed their treatment, effectively put on a legal court of Common Pleas for any writ of habeas corpus, plus they were released, carrying out a ruling by Mister John Vaughan.
Mead later resided at Highgate, and entertained George Fox there in 1677. He held a number one position one of the Quakers, and many occasions anxiously waited around the king with George Whitehead yet others. He purchased about 1684 the estate of Goosehays (also Goosehayes, Gooses), in Hornchurch parish, Kent, where Fox would be a customer. He died at Goosehays 3 April 1713, aged 86, and it was hidden within the Friends’ graveyard at Barking having a headstone.
Mead authored, with Whitehead yet others, several vindications of “the folks known as Quakers”. One of these simple was sent to home of Lords, 21 Feb 1701.
Mead married and lost his first wife, Mary Lawrence, in 1679. A young child, Jonathan, died in 1680.
In 1681 Mead married Sarah Fell, 4th daughter of Thomas (died 1658) and Margaret Fell Margaret married George Fox as her second husband. Sarah Fell would be a preacher, Hebrew scholar, manager from the large household at Swarthmoor, along with a correspondent of William Penn and Robert Barclay. She’d been searched for in marriage by Richard Lower, court physician, whose brother Thomas married her sister Mary.
Sarah Fell acquired in the king in 1670 an order for that discharge of her mother (then Mrs. Fox) from prison, which she herself communicated to Lancaster. She was the very first clerk from the Lancashire Women’s Quarterly Meeting, and before she left Swarthmoor came up on her siblings Instructions the way you may order the company within the Quarterly Women’s Meeting Book. Her account-book of family expenditure and lots of letters were preserved within the Swarthmoor Manuscripts. She died at Goosehays, 9 June 1714, and it was hidden together with her husband at Barking.
To Nathaniel Mead, an attorney and politician who had been knighted, his “dear and onely child”, Mead left by will his estates working in london, Middlesex, Kent, Kent, and Surrey. He left also legacies towards the poor among Quakers yet others.
Attribution
This article incorporates text from the publication now within the public domain: Lee, Sidney, erectile dysfunction. (1894). “Mead, William”. Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Cruz, Elder & Co.
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