Who is shakespeares father

In fact, financial records show that he was putting his property, including land, in the hands of friends and family, Fallow said. Each scholar in the Cambridge publication has examined and reconstructed the lives of those closest to Shakespeare.

This article is more than 6 years old. A detail from a 19th century painting showing William Shakespeare buying a fashionable new collar. Read more. John Shakespeare prospered and began to deal in farm products and wool. It is recorded that he bought a house in the date that he first appears in the town records , and bought more property in Because John Shakespeare owned one house on Greenhill Street and two houses on Henley Street, the exact location of William's birth cannot be known for certain.

Sometime between and John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, the daughter of the wealthy Robert Arden of Wilmecote and owner of the sixty-acre farm called Asbies. The wedding would have most likely taken place in Mary Arden's parish church at Aston Cantlow, the burial place of Robert Arden, and, although there is no evidence of strong piety on either side of the family, it would have been a Catholic service, since Queen Mary I was the reigning monarch.

We assume neither John nor Mary could write -- John used a pair of glovers' compasses as his signature while Mary used a running horse -- but it did not prevent them from becoming important members of the community. John Shakespeare was elected to a multitude of civic positions, including ale-taster of the borough Stratford had a long-reaching reputation for its brewing in , chamberlain of the borough in , alderman in , a position which came with free education for his children at the Stratford Grammar School , high bailiff, or mayor, in , and chief alderman in Due to his important civic duties, he rightfully sought the title of gentleman and applied for his coat-of-arms in see picture on left.

However, for unspecific reasons the application was abruptly withdrawn, and within the next few years, for reasons just as mystifying, John Shakespeare would go from wealthy business owner and dedicated civil servant to debtor and absentee council member. By he was behind in his taxes and stopped paying the statutory aldermanic subscription for poor relief.

In , he had to mortgage Mary Shakespeare's estate, Asbies, to pay his creditors. In he was fined 40 pounds for missing a court date and in the town removed him from the board of aldermen due to lack of attendance. Cookies Policy AdChoices. The Parents of William Shakespeare. Picture of house in Henley Street Stratford-upon-Avon.

William Shakespeare Index.