Family and Education

m. Anne Jobson (prob. da. of Walter Jobson), 1s. 1da.2

Offices Held

Alderman, Hull, chamberlain 1584, sheriff 1588-9, mayor 1593-4.3

Biography

Cole was one of the Hull merchants who asked Cecil to accept the high stewardship in 1595. While he and Willan were attending the 1597 Parliament they were employed by the corporation to procure a new charter. Cole was still negotiating the following July, and his name appears as an alderman in the charter which the Queen granted on 21 Aug. 1598. Two references to a Mr. Cole in this Parliament probably concern the Member for Hull. On 18 Jan. 1598 he was appointed to a committee considering the bill for the maintenance of the navy, and on 26 Jan. he was serving on a committee of the bill for the relief of mariners and soldiers. As burgess for Kingston-upon-Hull he could have served on committees concerning maltsters (9, 18 Nov. 1597), navigation (12 Nov.), cloth (18 Nov.), the poor law (22 Nov.) and maltsters again on 12 Jan. 1598.4

The Hull council was puritan in complexion: in 1598 it banned plays and complained to the archbishop of York of the ‘lewdness of the poorer sort of inhabitants’. In 1598 and 1599 Cole, together with the mayor and two preachers, received instructions from the ecclesiastical commission at York to suppress drunkenness and other vices in the parish of St. Nicholas, Hull. In 1599 he went to London to press his exchequer suit against John Aldred.5

Cole died early in 1607. By his will, dated 13 Jan. of that year, he asked to be buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity. He left 40s. to the poor, 20s. to Mr. Wincop, the Hull preacher, houses in Finkel Street to his wife and the residue of his estate to his son Abdias. The will was proved at York, 18 Feb. 1607, by Walter Jobson and William Gee.6

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: R.C.G.

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. York wills, 30/245.
• 3. T. Gent, Hist. Hull, 126.
• 4. HMC Hatfield , v. 439-40; Hull Deeds , ed. Stanewell, 110, 112, 116, 171, 172; Charters of Kingston-on-Hull , ed. Boyle, 109; D’Ewes, 554, 556, 558, 559, 561, 578, 582, 588.
• 5. J. A. Newton, ‘Puritanism in the Diocese of York 1603-40’ (London Univ. PhD thesis 1956), 159-61; Tickell, Hist. Hull , 265-7; HMC Hatfield , ix. 139.
• 6. York wills, 30/245.