Joan Wilkinson (died 1556)

Joan or Jane Wilkinson (née North) (d.1556) was silkwoman to Anne Boleyn and Lady Lisle and a Protestant reformer. She was a friend of other leading reformers, including Bishops John Hooper and Hugh Latimer. During the reign of Mary I, she became a religious exile, and died at Frankfurt in 1556.

Joan North was the daughter of Roger North (d.1509) and Christian Warcop, the daughter of Richard Warcop of Sinnington, Yorkshire. She had a brother, Edward North, 1st Baron North. Little is known of their relationship beyond the fact that she forgave him a debt in her will, and it may be that the relationship was strained by their differing religious beliefs.

After the death of Roger North, Joan's mother, Christian Warcop married, as his first wife, Sir Ralph Warren (c.1483–1553), Lord Mayor of London in 1536 and 1544, but had no issue by him. After Christian's death, Sir Ralph Warren married, as his second wife, Joan Trelake (d. 8 February 1573), the daughter of John Trelake of Cornwall. According to Sutton, Joan enjoyed 'excellent relations' with her stepfather, Sir Ralph Warren, and his second wife, Joan Trelake, and was a beneficiary under Sir Ralph Warren's will.

Joan North married William Wilkinson, a wealthy London Sheriff and alderman who served on three occasions as Warden of the Mercers' Company. Between the years 1533 and 1535 Joan Wilkinson was silkwoman in the household of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, where according to Litzenberger, 'she would have been exposed to the evangelical beliefs espoused by Anne and her chaplains', among them Hugh Latimer. The suggestion that Joan's religious convictions were formed early is supported by the bequest to her of a ring in the will of the London mercer, Robert Pakington (d. 13 November 1536), who also held radical Protestant beliefs, and by her involvement in the importing of evangelical books in the 1530s.