John Port (the younger)

:John Port."Infobox Person
name = Sir John Port (the younger)


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birth_date = Dictionary of National Biography now in the public domain]
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death_date = 6 June 1557
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education = Brasenose College
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spouse = Elizabeth Gifford and Dorothy Fitzherbert
parents = Sir John Port the elder
children = three daughtersSir John Port the younger (d. 1557) was an English Knight of the Bath and Justice of the Common Pleas. He founded Repton School, a hospital (almshouse) at Etwall and also has a secondary school named after him.

Biography

John was the son of Sir John Port whose family came from Chester. He was one of the Justices of the Common Pleas in the reign of King Henry VIII.

John was the first lecturer or scholar on his father's foundation at Brasenose College. He was knighted at the coronation of Edward VI and was a member of Mary's first parliament representing Derbyshire. He was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1554. He died on 6 June 1557

Family

Sir John Port married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Gifford of Chillington in the county of Stafford by Dorothy, his wife, third daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Montgomery, which Elizabeth was heiress to her mother. By his first wife he had three daughters and two sons:
* Walter and Thomas died at an early age in the lifetime of their father
* Elizabeth who married Sir Thomas Gerrard of Bryn, Shropshire, ancestor of the baronets of that name
* Dorothy who married George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon,
* Anne who married Sir Thomas Stanhope, ancestor of the earls of Chesterfield. Sir John married, secondly, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert.

His father was Sir John Port the Elder. His mother was Jane, his father's first wife, daughter and heiress of John Fitzherbert of Etwall. She had previously married John Pole of Radborne. [http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=68oHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA264&dq=%22sir+john+port%22&ei=UTAiR_K2HIiS6wLxhIDtBw Historical and topographical description of Repton, in the county of Derby] By Robert Bigsby, 1854, accessed 23 October 2007]

Sir John the Younger had three sisters: Ellen who became first the wife of Edmund Pierrepont of Holme, Nottinghamshire in the county of Nottingham and secondly of John Babington; Barbara who was married to John Francys of Foremark in the county of Derby; and Maria who was the wife of George Findern of Findern in the same county.

The family of Port seems to have been seated in the fifteenth century at Westchestcr now commonly called Chester Henry Port of that place described as a merchant M was the great grandfather of Sir John Port the founder of Etwall Hospital and Repton School and a second Henry Port of the same place described as a mercer 262 was his grandfather For the latter there is a monument in Etwall Church recording that he died in 1512 having had by his wife Elizabeth who as we learn from other sources was daughter of Banowayte of Flowresbrook seventeen children 268 Sir John Port the subject of this memoir was created a Knight of the Bath in company with many personages of the highest distinction at the coronation of King Edward VI

Bequests

Sir John Port had no children when he died in 1557. By his will, he left bequests for the creation of an almshouse at Etwall and a "Grammar School in Etwalle or Reptone", where the scholars every day were to pray for the souls of his parents and other relatives. [http://www.repton.org.uk/mainlist.html?pgi=head.hist History of Repton school] accessed 2 November 2007] . The excecutors purchased land which had once been the grounds of an Augustinian priory in Repton. Luckily it and the surrounding buildings had survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries. [http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=68oHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA264&dq=%22sir+john+port%22&ei=UTAiR_K2HIiS6wLxhIDtBw Historical and topographical description of Repton, in the county of Derby] By Robert Bigsby, 1854, accessed 23 October 2007] . Repton School has since become one of the great public schools of England. Sir John also confirmed and augmented his father's grants to Brasenose College, Oxford.

References