Family and Education

b. by 1492, s. of William Cole of Shrewsbury by Elizabeth, da. of Sir Nicholas Eyton of Eyton-on-the-Weald Moors. m. Alice Churchyard, 1da., 10 other ch. illegit. bef. m.2

Offices Held

Burgess (common councilman), Shrewsbury by 1513, bailiff 1522-3, 1528-9, 1533-4, 1537-8, alderman by Mar. 1525, master, Drapers’ Co. 1536-7, 1538-9, 1540-1, 1544-5; commr. subsidy 1523.3

Biography

Edmund Cole came of a family established at Shrewsbury since the 13th century. Of little account in municipal affairs before his admission in 1520 to the freedom of the Drapers’ Company, he was serving his first term as one of the bailiffs when returned with a fellow-draper, Adam Mytton, to the Parliament of 1523. Nothing is known about his part in the House but after the dissolution he was named to the commission to collect the subsidy which he had helped to grant. After his marriage to Alice Churchyard, by whom he already had ten children, he settled as much as he could of his inheritance upon the eldest son among them, Robert Cole. In 1556 he made the last of a series of conveyances in Robert’s favour but by 1563 Alice Cole had become a widow. Most of Cole’s property, which in 1545 was assessed for subsidy at £20 a year, passed to the heirs of his sister Sybil who had married John Otley of Pitchford, Shropshire.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Muriel Booth

Notes

• 1. Shrewsbury Guildhall 75(2), f. 11v; Shrewsbury sch. Taylor ms 35, ff. 51v-52.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 126-7, 181; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), xii. 179-80.
• 3. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), iv. 231-44; xvii. 66; H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i. 530-1; Shrewsbury Guildhall 75(3), f. 1; LP Hen. VIII, iii.
• 4. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 1), viii. 454; (ser. 4), xii, 179-80; E179/166/171; Vis. Salop, 126-7.