John Fenton

Date of Brass:

1566

Place:

Coleshill

County:

Warwickshire

Country:

Number:

III

Style:

London

Description

June 2026

 

John Fenton’s brass at Coleshill, north-west of Birmingham, is an example of a brass for an early post-Reformation clergyman. He died in 1566, having been perpetual vicar of Coleshill since November 1538. He was appointed following the surrender in 1536-7 of Markyate Priory, which had formerly provided Coleshill with its clergy. He was concurrently the Official of the Archdeacon of Coventry, enforcing ecclesiastical discipline and carrying out annual visitations. The black stone in which this London-made brass is laid suggests it may have been relaid.

 

The inscription is not quite as straightforward as it seems. It reads: 

 

Here lieth the body of syr John Fenton prest

Bachelar of law sumtyme vicar of this church and

Offishall of Coventree, who Deceassed the xvij daye

of Maye. 1566. whose soule Jesus pardon Amen

 

Fenton was the subject of an article by Kirsteen Harvey and Andrew Watkins, cited below, that drew much from his will and referred to a few events during his incumbency. It uncovered nothing from before his arrival in Coleshill except that he was probably ordained in the mid-1510s and that his yeoman family was from Derbyshire. A search of further sources not used by Harvey and Watkins reveals little else. He was likely the John Fenton, chaplain, who, as administrator of the will of Richard Fenton, was pursuing a debt in the Court of Common Pleas in 1528. The action was brought in Staffordshire, which may in turn indicate that he was the man engaged in 1533 by the mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme to celebrate at the altar of St Katherine in the parish church of St Giles. John Fenton occupied this post until the dissolution of the chantries in 1548 and thereafter received a pension of 71s 4d until 1561.

If this was the same John Fenton who was perpetual vicar of Coleshill, this will have required him to reside permanently in Coleshill from 1538. The post in Newcastle may have involved him teaching, as the dedication to St Katherine, patron saint of philosophers, preachers and students could imply. If so, it would explain why a university graduate took this post. He may then have had to employ a deputy to take over that role after 1538.

This might also explain a problem that he had with some parishioners in his first few years at Coleshill. They had been used to the Prioress of Markyate supplying a second priest for the parish, whose specific duty was to celebrate a mass at dawn for labourers before they started work. Robert Whitworth and others complained to the Court of Augmentations that Fenton did not supply such a priest and had absented himself from the parish. If Fenton was already the archdeacon’s Official, absences would be explicable; if not, perhaps he was fulfilling duties elsewhere.

Fenton was on better terms with his parishioners in his later years at Coleshill, writing wills for them and acting as a witness, overseer or executor. For example he was an executor of the will of the widow Eleanor Bellars in 1547. He was also one of the recipients of a grant by Robert Whitworth of lands and tenements in Coleshill in 1546. His own will shows him as a farmer with extensive stock. He was also looking after his neice Margaret, an ‘idiot’, daughter and heir of his older brother William, since William’s death in 1559. He was keen to ensure continued support for her.

 

Copyright: Jon Bayliss, text and photographs

 

Reference:

Kirsteen Harvey & Andrew Watkins, ‘John Fenton: a sixteenth-century vicar of Coleshill’, Midland History, 44:1, 3-20, available for download from: https://www.academia.edu/82175406/John_Fenton_a_sixteenth_century_vicar_of_Coleshill 

Harvey & Watkins' article was reviewed in MBS Bulletin 142 (October 2019).