John Vesey
Bishop John Vesey, was born John Harman, probably about 1462, the son of a yeoman farmer, in a farmhouse now known as Moor Hall Farm, Sutton Coldfield. He was educated at Magdalene College, Oxford where he was awarded a doctorate in Canon and Civil Law and after ordination was appointed Rector of St Marys, Chester.
He became a friend of Thomas Wolsey, also educated at Magdalene. In 1509, Wolsey became a Canon of Windsor and Chaplain to King Henry, and Vesey was appointed a Canon of Exeter. Vesey was promoted Bishop of Exeter in 1519 and the King awarded him the temporalities of the See, worth about £1,500 a year. The town of his birth was to benefit greatly from his wealth. In 1527, he obtained permission to enclose a large plot of land close to his birthplace and built a grand house, (which is now Moor Hall Hotel) where he occasionally lived, in great style.
The township of Sutton Coldfield had fallen on hard times and he took it on himself to restore the fortunes of the town and its inhabitants. He prevailed upon the King to grant the town a Royal Charter in 1528.
He is credited with rebuilding the aisles of the Church, reviving the markets and building a Market place, paving the town, building two stone bridges, founding and endowing a Free Grammar School, Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and building 51 stone houses.
He survived the fall of Wolsey in 1529 and prospered reasonably under Thomas Cromwell until 1551, when he was deprived of his See, and its temporalities, in exchange for a pension of £485 a year. He died in 1555 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church on Trinity Hill, Sutton Coldfield where it annually visited by the school in a ceremony.
References
- The Lives of the Bishops of Exeter, 1861, Rev. George Oliver