THE IDENTITY OF JOHN BISHOP,
GUNNER, 1625. The “earliest dated artifact” discovered at Martin’s Hundred, a
colonial habitation on the north bank of the James River near Carter’s Grove,
Virginia, is a stamped lead strip from a lattice window. According to Ivor Noel Hume, “words and a date molded in relief and
hidden within the leaden fold that had gripped the glass”[1]
were revealed during routine cleaning: “:Iohn: Byshapp of Exceter Gonner 1625.”[2]
Hume concludes Martin’s Hundred by
posing the question of John Bishop’s identity and asking “why he wanted his
name and address hidden in tiny letters where no one could read them?” This
note attempts to answer both queries, based upon the belief that the
inscription can be translated as “John Bishop of Exeter, Gunner, 1625.”
On 11 January 1631/2 Charles I informed the
Treasurer and Undertreasurer of the Exchequer of
Receipt that he had appointed one “John Bishopp” to
be the royal “handgunmaker.” Bishop received an
annuity of £12, payable from the Tellers of the Exchequer of Receipt, who
disbursed the king’s revenues. The first installment was paid at the last feast
of the annunciation of the Virgin and the “handgunmaker”
enjoyed his pension at Charles I’s pleasures, which
he apparently did throughout the years of the “Personal Rule.”[3]
Certainly he continued on through the Bishops’ Wars[4]
for on 17 April 1640
he collected £24 from John Saville, one of the four
tellers at the Exchequer of Receipt, accounting for two years’ service. The
order book describes the recipient as “John Bishop his Majesties handgunmaker in ordinary.”[5]
Unfortunately, no manuscript evidence connects this “John Bishop, gunner” to
the Devonshire city of Exeter. Circumstantial evidence, however,
suggests that Bishop was a west country man who had come to the metropolis,
where gun-making flourished in the 1630s.[6] In
1632 he came to the attention of the king and entered royal service.[7] An
entry in the Ordnance Office records suggests an answer to the second question,
namely, how did Bishop’s name get on the concealed side of the leading of a
lattice? Along with the manufacture of pistols and the like, Bishop also worked
in lead. Certainly a gunmaker, or gunner, cast his
own shot from lead ingots. But John Bishop also made “musket molds” and in fact
seems to have been something of a designer or inventor of various firearms and
molds. In January 1638/9, on the eve of the first Bishops’ War, his royal
master awarded him £5 for having fashioned a “Muskett
Mold” for the Earl of Newport, the Master of the Ordnance. He received the
money from a fund of £5,375 designated to increase the arsenal of pistols,
carbines and firearms accessories. The sum was granted above and beyond his
pension of pistols, carbines and firearms accessories. The sum was granted
above and beyond his pension “in regard of his invencion
and extraordinary Care and paynes.”[8]
The Order was accompanied by a letter from Newport which apparently is no longer extant.
Bishop, then, manufactured guns and worked in lead. Is it possible that in 1625
he maintained a shop in Exeter
and, quite naturally, had stamped the wares and materials in his shop? Gunmakers and swordmakers
customarily emblazoned their names on their creations, something that was done
quite frequently in this period of intensive arms manufacture during the era of
the Thirty Years’ War. Buyers often insisted on proof of the place of
manufacture. The “musket mold” entry, too, implies that Bishop cast lead as
well as forged steel. Is it possible that the windon
lead from “site A” came from Bishop’s gunmakers shop,
presumably in Exeter?
Perhaps a lattice window maker purchased lead from Bishop’s stores or
cannibalized some used molds or ingots. Bishop might well have traded in lead
and marked his ingots to attest to their quality. The Bishop ‘trademark” would
quite understandably be turned inside for reasons of aesthetics. Of course,
this scenario suggests that John Bishop never set foot in Virginia, which is something of a
disappointment. But it is intriguing to surmise that if indeed the windows were
shipped from Exeter, made with John Bishop’s lead, some of the firearms used by
the settler at Martin’s Hundred came from Exeter as well, perhaps even from the
shop of “John Bishop, Gunner.”