GARNONS, Luke (d.1615), of Southgate Street, Gloucester.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

2nd s. of John Garnons of Herefs. by Mary or Margery, da. of John Cawardine of Madeley, Herefs.; bro. of Nicholas. m. Anne Woodward of Twyning, 3s. 1da.

Offices Held

Steward, Gloucester 1558-9, 1563-4, common councilman from 1565, sheriff 1565, 1569, mayor 1570-1, 1586-7, 1600-1.

Biography

Garnons was a draper who acquired considerable property in the neighbourhood of Gloucester. He served the city in numerous capacities, supplying cloth to the corporation, serving on commissions, controlling the supply of corn in time of dearth, and acting on its behalf in London. In 1605, when Gloucester received a new charter, he was named as an alderman for life. He appears to have been popular with the commoners, and was ready on occasion to antagonize the majority of aldermen, as when, during his second mayoralty, despite the intervention of the Privy Council, the lord lieutenant and the lord chief justices, he refused first to elect, and later to admit, William Oldsworth as recorder. On each of the four occasions in which he represented the borough in Parliament, he received the statutory wage plus travelling expenses. At the contested election of 1597, although the electors shouted his name first, he was placed second on the return. He is not mentioned by name in the parliamentary journals, but may have attended committees in the 1597 Parliament to which the Members for Gloucester were appointed, concerning forestallers (7 Nov.), maltsters (9 Nov.), the city of Bristol (28 Nov.), Newport bridge (29 Nov.), cloth (8 Dec.) and malt (12 Jan. 598).

He died on 12 Feb. 1615 and was buried in the church of St. Mary, where the inscription on his tomb describes him as ‘that most excellent and sagacious man’. In his will, made 20 June 1608 and proved 21 Nov. 1615, he appointed his son Antony as sole executor and his son-in-law, Henry Hassard, and John Bridgman as overseers.

PCC 102 Rudd; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 63; Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans. vii. 286; lvi. 156, 220-1; J. P. Powell, Gloucestriana (1890), 98; Neale, Commons, 276-81; Gloucester Recs. ed. Stevenson, 37, 66, 67-8; Gloucester Guildhall ms 1450, f. 36; 1451, ff. 118, 222; 1500, ff. 69, 96, 212; APC, xvi. 97; xviii. 287; Lansd. 76, f. 103; 80, f. 105; D’Ewes, 552, 554, 564, 565, 569, 578.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: W.J.J.

Notes