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John Hales was M.P. for Preston and Clerk of the Hanaper; nationally he is favoured as one of the reforming commissioners appointed in 1549 who investigated the effects of enclosure and as a writer of "A Discourse of the Common Weal". A Marian exile in Frankfurt, Hales was fined £1,500 for printing tracts at his Whitefriars' Press, Coventry and fell foul of Elizabeth I for supporting the Suffolk line's claim to the throne (but she visited him in Coventry in 1565). "Hales with the club foot" was unpopular in Coventry because he acquired so much church land at the Reformation; thus the Benedictine Priory estate granted to him by Richard Lee in 1544 stayed in the family until granted to the corporation in 1575 - see PA56/99/5. Hales acquired the Carmelite Priory (Whitefriars) in c.1543, extending the eastern range and calling the residence "Hales Place"; in the choir of the former church he began the Grammar School (see PA365 for its fundatorial letters-patent) but in 1556/7 (acting on that charter's provisions while Hales was in Germany) the corporation claimed the building, so the school was transferred to St. John's Hospital; Whitefriars church was demolished when Hales died, but the property remained in the family until sold in 1717 to pay Sir Christopher Hales' debts (a copy of the eighteenth-century Act is in a searchroom library pamphlet box C7). Before it became the Grammar School, St. John's Hospital had been altered by Hales, but the interior remained little-changed for four centuries after its purchaser had transferred eighteen fifteenth-century carved oak stalls to join 31 others at the Hospital and had raised the floor-level by 2ft.; by the time of Hales' death a house north-east of the Hospital had been taken over by the headmaster and another was used by the usher: in 1545 Hales acquired the Hospital's estate, which consisted of Harnall Grange, Swanswell Pool, Stoke land and thirteen fields - it left his family for the Nortons in 1624. In 1549 Hales granted premises in the Bull Ring and Ironmonger Row to Thomas Wheatley (see PA101/138/17). Hales sold the Beechwaste, Foleshill to his brother Stephen in 1560 but later it descended with the Whitmore lands (gained from Sir Ralph Sadler in 1547) - see PA96/98/1.II - to his nephew John. Altgeder and Earl's Mills were acquired in the 1540s (the former from James Combes and Richard Standfield) and passed, after a legal struggle, to the corporation in 1573 (cf. PA56/80/52). Bishop St. court leet was another of Hales' perquisites (cf. PA96/60/1), and Hales St. was named after him. Hales' arms are displayed on the Council House frontage - see PA492/2 fols.36-38. The foundation charter's seal melted during the 8th May 1941 air-raid in which Hales' portrait (of which a watercolour is PA1/6 fol.64 (fol."32")) was damaged. PA12/1 is the grant to Hales of St. John's Hospital. PA14/11/4 refers to the school's starting at Whitefriars'. PA21/1/35 summarises PA12/1's grant, as does PA17/34/1. In PA244/37/4, Richard Moryson quitclaims his interest in Priory lands to Hales, 1546. PA244/37/6 refers to the mills. PA244/37/7 is a copy of Hales' will. See PA274/1 fol.1. Hales held ex-Merinton's Chantry land in 1552 - see BA/B/P/102/3. He was an Exchequer baron and General Surveyor in 1524 - see BA/G/A/3/5. Along with the leet there, he acquired Bishop St. tenements which had belonged to the Priory - see BA/B/A/7/1. Hales had Smithford St. messuages (1550 - BA/H/H/314/1; BA/H/H/315/1) and a Much Park St. tenement (see BA/H/H/418/1). John Hales sold ex-Priory land at Cook St. to John Saunders (1549 - PA1516/6/1) and some at West Orchard (1550 - PA1516/21/1); he had a Mill Lane tenement (PA1516/10/1). John appointed his brothers Christopher and Stephen as attorneys to sell his property (1551 - PA1516/12/1). PA54/271/1 shows that in 1545 Hales acquired the Bennet's Barn estate at Foleshill and Offchurch, Warwickshire rectory. See PA500/19/3. PA506/235/1,11,21,22,24,27-29 are letters discussing which was his original portrait of those in Coventry in the mid-nineteenth century (see PA526/165/1 likewise). For the Stansfield and Combes grant, cf. PA56/89/6.III; for that of the St. John's Hospital estate, PA56/89/6.IV. PA2358/1/1,3,4,17 are legal papers which mention Hales' grammar school foundation in connection with Reverend Edward Jackson(q.v.)'s lawsuit, 1729 - c.1734. At the end of his life, in 1572 Hales quitclaimed the Saint John Baptist's Hospital estate (whose chapel became the freeschool), messuages which had belonged to Coventry and Kenilworth Priories, and Whitefriars', Bastille and Hill Mills to Thomas Docwra and Bartholomew Hales (qq.v.) who in 1573 sold on nearly all of that estate to service the school (PA2290/1/3,6). See PA2684/4/7/4/2. PA2770/16/1 is a family pedigree. Cf. PA2846/4/4,22. Hales sold a tenter yard, etc. to the draper Philip Sherrard (q.v.) by 1550 (see PA3000/1/1/243).