This first report from the summer internships in partnership with the Oxford University Careers Service Micro-internship programme and the Crankstart Scholarship programme, addresses questions about Roger Sutton, the son of our charity’s founder Thomas Sutton, who was not named in his father’s will.
Wealth, legal drama, family, and philanthropy in Jacobean England
In 1611, Thomas Sutton’s dream of establishing an almshouse and school was realised. James I (and VI of Scotland) granted the necessary Letters Patent in June of that year to confirm the foundation of the charity. Thomas Sutton died later in December, in the knowledge that his charitable legacy was confirmed, but before the first residents and scholars were admitted.
The charity, commonly known as Sutton’s Hospital, was officially called the ‘Hospitall of King James founded in Charter-house in the Countie of Middlesex’, but instead of royal recognition constituting the crowning glory of a remarkable philanthropic legacy, within two years, the King’s approval was in doubt. Amid several ongoing legal battles over Sutton’s estate, James I personally intervened via a scathing letter to attack Thomas’ will, the contents of which he deemed to endanger the very “reputation of his … memory.”
This clash had the potential to shake the foundations of the charity, and was rooted in the plight of Thomas’ son, Roger Sutton, sired, sustained, and eventually shunned by his father, the wealthiest commoner in England.
Roger Sutton: “begetting and birthright”
Born in the Northumberland town of Alnwick in the 1570s to Thomas Sutton and Agnes Inskipp, who were not married, Roger Sutton seems to have received schooling locally. From 1569 to 1582, Thomas Sutton resided in Alnwick and the north, holding the influential post of Master of the Ordnance in the North, supervising military supplies and resources in the region.
Whilst Roger seemingly benefitted from his father’s influence, later receiving employment as a soldier in the garrison of Berwick-upon-Tweed, any parental support from his father appears to have decreased over time. No direct mention is made of Roger in Thomas’ 1594 draft of his will, and in the ultimate will of 1611 he is excluded totally, despite his father’s lack of any other heirs. This erasure is made especially poignant as Thomas even left some money to his nieces and nephews and the children of his brother-in-law, Robert Dudley.
The legal battle
Roger Sutton subsequently sought to secure his share of the inheritance in a decade- spanning legal battle. Only through successive petitioning of King James himself in 1613 and 1615 did Roger’s efforts eventually secure a 1621 deed certifying his lineage, alongside a warrant mandating the provision of financial aid. The receipts issued by Roger to the charity’s governors between 1621-24 for items like clothing constitute the last confirmed record of Roger Sutton. These records survive in the archive of Sutton’s Hospital, held at The London Archives.
A founding father yet not a Dad
The relationship between Roger and Thomas Sutton shows how ideas of legitimacy could influence fatherhood in early-modern England. Roger’s status as a son born out of wedlock meant that he did not benefit from the patriarchal norm of being the male heir. Instead of Roger, Thomas made his new charity at the Charterhouse his personal heir, and the 80 poor men and the 40 poor scholars became the main beneficiaries of his wealth. He chose public charitable fatherhood over private biological duty. This decision brought mixed reactions but ultimately secured his place as a perpetual patriarch of the Charterhouse.
An analysis of Roger’s struggle for legal recognition and redress encompasses contemporary norms of family, fatherhood and duty, and demonstrates the conflicted foundations of one of England’s most remarkable charitable institutions.
Researched and written by Carl Peck and Stephanie Ebirim