The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, John Stow was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. He was admitted to the Merchant Taylor's company in 1547 and had established by that year a business at a house near the well within Aldgate, between Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street. Pretty soon his antiquarian nature took charge.
He made the acquaintance of the leading antiquarians of his time, including William Camden, and in 1561 he published his first work, The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whiche were never in printe before. This was followed in 1565 by his Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles, which was frequently reprinted, with slight variations, during his lifetime.
Through the patronThe son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, John Stow was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. He was admitted to the Merchant Taylor's company in 1547 and had established by that year a business at a house near the well within Aldgate, between Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street. Pretty soon his antiquarian nature took charge.
He made the acquaintance of the leading antiquarians of his time, including William Camden, and in 1561 he published his first work, The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whiche were never in printe before. This was followed in 1565 by his Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles, which was frequently reprinted, with slight variations, during his lifetime.
Through the patronage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, Stow was able to print the Flores historiarum of Matthew of Westminster in 1567, the Chronicle of Matthew Paris in 1571, and the Historia brevis of Thomas Walsingham in 1574.
At the request of Parker he had compiled a "farre larger volume," a history of Britain, but circumstances were unfavourable to its publication and the manuscript was lost.
The work for which Stow is best known is his Survey of London, published in 1598, not only interesting for the quaint simplicity of its style and its amusing descriptions and anecdotes, but of unique value for its minute account of the buildings, social condition and customs of London in the time of Elizabeth I. A second edition appeared in his lifetime in 1603, a third with additions by Anthony Munday in 1618, a fourth by Munday and Dyson in 1633, a fifth with interpolated amendments by John Strype in 1720.
Stow died in poverty in 1605 and was buried in the church of St Andrew Undershaft, London, where his monument still remains....more
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