Talk:William Craven (Lord Mayor of London)

Aldgate 1618????

Aldgate print referring to an inscription on the gate dated 1609

The following statement (like much of this article) is imported directly from the Old DNB article on William Craven:

"The last public act recorded of Craven is the laying of the foundation-stone of the new Aldgate on 26 May 1618."

This seems very odd as the engraving of the new Aldgate, which was erected in the name of the Lord Mayor Humphrey Weld (Mayor 1608-09), refers to a carved inscription on the gate, dated 1609. Sir William Craven's mayoralty is usually stated as 1610-11, despite the doubtful inclusion of "1618" at the start of this article, imported from Thepeerage.com. There seems to be a cloud of inaccuracy from the uncritical use of differing unverified sources, and the passing on of old mistakes. The correct date for the Aldgate seems to be 1609 and the Mayor principally associated with it (his name inscribed on it) was Humphrey Weld. Sir Humphrey died in 1610. If Sir William Craven laid the foundation stone it ought to have been done during his own mayoralty, which by any calculation was not before the late stages of 1609. It can hardly have waited until 1618, even supposing that he had any connection with the mayoralty at that time, the year of his death. It looks a bit like a red herring, thanks to the old DNB. Eebahgum (talk) 20:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Added to which, the engraving refers to "King James ye 1st", which suggests the engraving may not be earlier than 1685, the first year of James II. That may suggest that the caption to the print is an addition, and that the image (to which the caption is added) is a reinvention of the Wenceslas Hollar print which was incorporated into maps produced after 1685. Eebahgum (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

And furthermore I cannot identify the source cited for this remark by Old DNB, which is "Seymour, 'London', Book i", despite a trawl in worldcat and google. Eebahgum (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

And moreover in the 1633 edition of Stow's Survey of London, the margin next to Humphrey Weld's mayoralty 1609 says "This yeere Aldgate was fully finished" - and there is no mention of the illusory 1618 mayoralty for Craven (John Stow, ed. A.M., H.D., etc., The Survey of London: contayning the orignall, increase, moderne estate, and government of that city, methodically set downe (Elizabeth Purslow, London 1633), p. 594 (Internet Archive)). I am therefore going to delete accordingly.Eebahgum (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

And so I find that it was at Aldersgate, not Aldgate, that Sir William Craven, Alderman, laid the first stone of the new gate, on 26 May 1617, according to Anthony Munday's Stow (Stow, ed. Munday, as above, (1633), p. 321a (Internet Archive)). Eebahgum (talk) 22:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)