Stephen Jenyns

Sir Stephen Jenyns (c. 1450–1523) was a wool merchant from Wolverhampton, Merchant of the Staple and Master Merchant Taylor who became Lord Mayor of London for the year of the coronation of King Henry VIII. An artistic, architectural and educational patron, he founded Wolverhampton Grammar School, and took a leading part in the rebuilding of the church of St. Andrew Undershaft in the City of London.

Stephen Jenyns was, according to 17th century Heraldic Visitations of Staffordshire, the son of William Jenyns of Tenby, Pembrokeshire, and his wife Ellen, daughter and coheir of William Lane of Wolverhampton. He was born at Wolverhampton shortly before 1450, and was apprenticed to a London tailor in 1462-63. He settled in London and became a prominent member of the Fraternity of Taylors and Linen Armourers of St. John the Baptist. In 1485 he and two others supported Hugh Pemberton, a senior Taylor, in a bond for payment of £920 for Pemberton's action in the probate of Richard Nayler, Alderman and Taylor, who died in 1483. In 1490-95 he was concerned in the purchase of lands in Westminster with Thomas Randyll (Taylor), Henry Castell (Dyer) and Sir Richard Guildford.

In an age of Guild reform, William Buck became Master of the Fraternity of Taylors in 1488-89 and commenced the Treasury Accounts Book for payments and receipts. Jenyns succeeded him as Master and made further reforms. He set aside an old ordinance relating to election of Masters, and decreed that the Wardens in post at any time should have precedence, after the Masters, at all assemblies. At the end of his term he and his successors enacted that various allowances (for fees and expenditures) customarily made to the Master should be discontinued: Jenyns repaid nearly £22 by way of example, including a contribution towards rebuilding a property belonging to the Guild near St Matthew Friday Street. Annual pensions paid to the former Masters and their wives, and fees to the Wardens, were also curtailed.

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