Hugh Clopton

Hugh Clopton (c.1440 – 15 September 1496) was a Lord Mayor of London, a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers and a benefactor of his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire.

Hugh Clopton was born in about 1440 at Clopton House near Stratford-upon-Avon, where the Clopton family had lived since the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). He was a younger son of John Clopton by his wife, a certain Agnes whose surname is unknown. In 1450 his father received license to erect an oratory at the manor house. In 1474 Thomas Clopton, Hugh's elder brother, obtained permission from Pope Sixtus IV to add a chapel to the house for the celebration of divine service.

As a younger son excluded from his patrimony by primogeniture, he was expected to make his own fortune and left Clopton for the City of London at an early age, where he was apprenticed in 1457 to the mercer John Roo, and was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1464. He served as Warden of the Company three times, in 1479, 1484 and 1488. On 15 October 1485 he was chosen as Alderman for Dowgate ward. In 1486 he was elected Sheriff of London during Sir Henry Colet's term as mayor, and was himself chosen Lord Mayor of London in 1491. By 1495 he was living in Bread Street. Although some biographers have stated that he was knighted, this does not appear to have been the case as he described himself in his will merely as "citizen, mercer and alderman".

His vast fortune enabled him to become possessed of his ancestral estates at Clopton, the inheritance of his elder brother, and it is certain that the neighbouring town of Stratford-upon-Avon was his favourite place of residence. In about 1483 he erected there (in Chapel Street) "a pretty house of brick and timber", which was later purchased in 1597 and renovated by the playwright William Shakespeare, and under the name of New Place served as his residence until his death in 1616.

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