Thomas Wylde (clothier)

Thomas Wylde (bef.1508 – 1559) clothier of The Commandery, Worcester, England was the son of Simon Wylde of The Ford, near Dodderhill where Thomas was to acquire the manor of Impney.

Member for Worcester.
Thomas Wylde was elected to the Parliament of 1547 in 1551 to fill a vacancy. He was re-elected in 1558. shortly before his death.

By late medieval times the population of Worcester had grown to around 10,000 as the manufacture of cloth started to become a large local industry. The town was designated a county corporate, giving it autonomy from local government.

Thomas Wylde was a clothier. It is believed he made the greatest part of his fortune when the wool trade with the Low Countries was blocked by war. His business at Worcester then a centre of cloth manufacture was so prosperous that not long after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII he purchased the site and surviving buildings of an old religious foundation at Worcester called the Hospital or more familiarly "The Commandery”. At his death his house had 31 rooms, one of them containing 20 feather beds. It was to remain in his Wylde family until 1785.

An overmantel with arched panels and Wylde heraldry dated c. 1594 has been relocated to the north-west room of the garden wing. The principal items of architectural interest are the Great Hall, 1470s, a good staircase of about 1600 and in a separate wing the Solar of similar detail to the hall. A remarkable survival is a painted chamber with stencilled decoration and wall paintings of religious subjects believed to have been made about 1490 and rediscovered in 1935: ceiling - the Trinity; north wall - St Michael weighing souls; south wall - martyrdom of St Erasmus and St Thomas Becket. There is more.

Bought by Wylde in 1544 from a Richard Morrison the complex of buildings comprising the hospital of St Wulfstan is said to have been founded 1085 though it may have been up to two centuries later. It served as an almshouse as well as a place of hospitality for travelers. It is situated just outside Worcester’s Sidbury Gate on the London road and had been disused after its suppression in 1540 following the dissolution of the monasteries. Then, like many establishments of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, known as the Commandery it has kept that name. The present building, largely of close-studding is mostly late 15th century, much of it later clad with brick or rendered. It now forms an irregular extended H-plan, but was probably originally built around two courtyards.

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