The Schoolboy who Killed a King

John Hutchinson

Charles Brandon,
1st Duke of Norfolk

St Katherines Priory was a religious house of the Gilbertine Order, it stood on a site west of St Catherines, south of Sincil Drain and north of Hamilton Road. William Griffith, the last prior, surrendered the priory in 1535 to an agent of King Henry VIII. The property, and most of the monastic lands of Lincolnshire, was granted to Henry’s former brother in law, 

The stone from the priory was used to build, St Katherine’s Hall, a grand Elizabethan house. The house became the property of Sir Thomas Grantham, member of Parliament for Lincoln from 1604 to 1629, on the death of his father Vincent when Thomas was still a minor. The Grantham family had been prominent in Lincoln since the early 1400s and made their fortune as wool merchants.

In 1603 King James I stayed at St Katherine’s Hall on his journey to London, during his stay he knighted Thomas.

Some years later John Hutchinson, a pupil of Lincoln Grammar School at Greyfriars, lived at the Hall as a guest of Sir Thomas.  Hutchinson was more interested in military matters than academic subjects and later became a colonel on the parliamentarian side. During the Civil War Hutchinson was governor of Nottingham castle and refused on three occasions to surrender it to his Royalist Opponents.

Hutchinson was one of the 39 signatories of the death warrant of James I’s son, Charles I.

In October 1663 Hutchinson was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in what was known as the Farnley Wood Plot. Hutchinson was to be transported to the Isle Man, but instead was sent to Sandown Castle in Kent in May 1664, he died of a fever there on 11 September 1664, aged 49.

He was buried at St Margaret's Church, Owthorpe, Nottinghamshire.

Lincoln's Industrial Revolution

In The Decline and Rise of Lincoln I wrote about how Lincoln fell from its position as one of the most important cities in England to a rural backwater hardly able to support itself. Now I will cover the times when Lincoln grew in prosperity again but never regained it’s former importance. In 1821 Lincoln’s population was 11,776, while Boston’s, which gained the Staple from Lincoln in 1369, stood at 10,373.

Lincoln was about to go through immense change, Richard Ellison had purchased a 999 year lease on the Fosdyke Canal in 1740 and set about improving navigation on the canal and the river Witham east of Lincoln. Farm produce and others goods could be sent from Lincoln by barge to other parts of the country and coal and lime could be brought in. Lincoln, surrounded by agriculture, was late in embracing the Industrial Revolution.

It was the 1840s when the Industrial Revolution arrived in Lincoln.  These people made a massive contribution to the growth of prosperity of Lincoln, click on the links to learn about their companies
William Rainforth
Nathaniel Clayton and Joseph Shuttleworth
Richard Duckering
Robert Robey
William Foster
Joseph Ruston
John Cooke

... and many more

Lincoln's Waterside Industrial Area Today 

Lincoln was one of the last major centres of population in England connected to the railway, the Midland Railway arrived in Lincoln in 1846 and the Great Northern in 1848, bringing with them traffic delays on Lincoln’s High Street.

In the period 1841 to 1861 Lincoln’s population grew by over 50% to almost 21,000, the population of St Swithin’s and St Peter at Gowts parishes, where most of the engineering firms were based, almost doubled.  At the end of the 19th century the population of Lincoln was 48,784 more than three times that of Boston.

Clayton & Shuttleworth's Iron Works in 1869

This is More Important than the Magna Carta

West gate of the Castle

Lincoln Castle reopened in April 2015 following the completion of the £22 million renovation and improvement of the castle. One of the most important features of the work is a new building where Magna Carta will be preserved in ideal conditions and may be viewed by the public.

The improvements to the castle were timed to coincide with the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta in 1215. Magna Carta will not be the only charter on view: Lincoln is the only place where Magna Carta can be viewed alongside The Charter of the Forest, although there is also a copy of The Charter at Durham.

The Charter of the Forest was sealed by the young King Henry III on 6th November 1217. This charter dealt with the rights of the common man, whereas Magna Carta covered issues affecting the barons. “Forest” in this context included not only wooded areas but, more commonly, royal hunting grounds and fields. From Henry II's time these areas had grown and people were regularly outlawed for breaking forest law. The Royal Forests were an important source of wood for fuel and charcoal making, turf for fuel and for the grazing of animals.

The Charter set out a requirement for the King to give up the Royal Forests and to free up the lands that Henry II and King John had made Royal Forests, uniquely giving back to the common man freedom to use those areas.

Charter of the Forest

A clause in The Charter specifically stated that "Henceforth every freeman, in his wood or on his land that he has in the forest, may with impunity make a mill, fish-preserve, pond, marl-pit, ditch, or arable in cultivated land outside coverts, provided that no injury is thereby given to any neighbour." 

The death penalty was abolished for capturing deer and mutilation as a lesser punishment was banned, although law breakers were still imprisoned or fined. The laws of The Charter were enforced in the forests by Verders' Courts.

Magna Carta is seen as the foundation of human rights in countries such as the United States, but the Charter of the Forest may be a more important document for the 'common man' of England and deserves its own celebration in 2017.

(First published 30th September 2014)

Click here to read about Lincoln Castle 


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