William Lok
| Sir William Lok | |
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| Father | Thomas Lok |
| Mother | Joan Wilcock |
| Born | 1480 |
| Died | 24 August 1550 (aged 69–70) Cheapside, London |
| Buried | Hospital of St Thomas of Acre, London |
Sir William Lok (1480 – 24 August 1550) was a gentleman usher to Henry VIII and a mercer, alderman, and sheriff of London. He was the great-great-great-grandfather of the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704).
William Lok was the second son of Thomas Lok, a London mercer, and the grandson of John Lok, also a mercer, who was Sheriff of London in 1461. His mother was Joan Wilcock (d.1512), only daughter of one 'Mr Wilcock' of Rotherham, Yorkshire.
Even before he was admitted to the Mercers' Company in 1507, Lok had already supplied cloth of gold and silver to Henry VIII. During the course of his visits as a mercer to the annual markets in Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom in the Low Countries, he collected intelligence which he passed on to the King and his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell.
In March 1527 he was granted 'exclusive licence to import silks, jewels, and mercery wares for court revels'. In addition to his trade as a mercer, Lok was involved in other business ventures, including the export of beer. In 1528 he supplied the royal ordinance with six hundred leather harnesses. In 1531 a ship travelling from Chios to London which had been hired by Lok and John Gresham was detained at Lisbon. According to a letter dating from 1533, Lok had at some time visited Crete, and may thus have been involved in the wine or currant trade. The wealth he had accumulated as a merchant by 1535 is indicated by the fact that he was rated in that year, perhaps in connection with a subsidy, at £1000.
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