Reynwell’s father, who came from Bromley in Kent, began life as a girdler, but in 1399, two years after being made alderman of Billingsgate Ward, he assumed the livery of the Ironmongers’ Company instead. At some point in his career he was made a freeman of Stratford-upon-Avon, where he owned property and probably had commercial contacts. He died a wealthy man, leaving his eldest son, the subject of this biography, to execute his will and administer the inheritance of his three younger children. About six years later, in October 1409, John Reynwell submitted his final account to the chamberlain of London for the sums he had disbursed.
The London customs records are too fragmentary to give more than a general idea of Reynwell’s other dealings: we know that he shipped occasional consignments of finished cloth into the City, and that in August 1425 he took delivery of a mixed cargo of wax, spices and other commodities worth £74 in all.
Meanwhile, in June 1416, Reynwell was chosen by the mayor of London as one of the six attorneys with authority to recover a loan of 10,000 marks made by the City to Henry V. One year later he and Nicholas James themselves contributed £40 towards the cost of Henry V’s second expedition to France, being promised restitution out of the London wool subsidy due after February 1420. The money had still not been repaid by the summer of 1426, however, when the two wealthy ironmongers (who may have been business partners) accepted an assignment from other forthcoming revenues.
Reynwell’s influence in the City was greatly enhanced by his position as one of its leading property owners. From his father he inherited a great house and ‘Treyereswharf’ on the Thames, which, together with his other holdings in London, were producing at least £16 p.a. by 1412. He subsequently took out a 90-year lease on an adjoining wharf and tenement; and in 1427 he became the tenant of another wharf and premises in Windgoose Lane, where he had already begun to acquire various dwellings. This part of his estate lay on what was to be the site of the original Hanse Steelyard, and possessed an impressive frontage on to the Thames. By 1436 his revenues from land and tenements in London and Warwickshire (probably his father’s Stratford property) stood at an estimated £120 a year. He died owning rents and tenements in at least five London parishes, although it is now difficult to establish the full extent of his personal interests, since he was frequently involved in conveyances made to the use of others.
For many years Reynwell played a full and distinguished part in the government of London: indeed, in later life, when he was first of all mayor of the Staple of Calais and then an ambassador to the Low Countries, he may be said to have achieved eminence on an international level. He performed his first official duty in September 1406, by serving on a London jury summoned to inquire into the retention of dues from the Exchequer. Between 1407 and 1442 he attended at least 14 of the parliamentary elections held in the City, and was himself returned to four Parliaments over a period of 35 years. He was exempted by royal letters patent in October 1442 from performing jury service or holding any office of the Crown; and two years later, in October 1444, the civic authorities likewise agreed that he should not be burdened with serving a second term as mayor of London, probably because of illness or old age. He had, in the previous May, been made a guardian of the key of the common chest of London, and in December of the same year he was appointed to supervise the building of a new granary there, although neither of these tasks is likely to have proved particularly demanding. Again, in September 1445, he was excused from holding office in the City, but he died before the exemption could take effect. Over the years he appeared regularly at meetings of the court of aldermen, being punctilious in the exercise of his civic duties.
Reynwell is now chiefly remembered for his generosity to the people of London. In the words of his epitaph:
His acts beare witnes, by matters of recorde, How Charitable he was, and of what accorde, No man hath bene so beneficiall as hee Vnto the Citie in giving liberallie ...
J. Stow. Surv. London ed. Kingsford, iii. 207.
Save for the cost of meeting three modest annuities, the revenues of all his property in London were set aside for works of great economic and practical value to the community. A sum of £66 was made available for the payment of taxes in three aldermanic wards, while £18 was assigned annually to discharge the fee farms of Southwark and London Bridge, payable at the Exchequer by the City. Reynwell also settled pensions upon the leading office-holders of London and left unspecified sums of money for the stocking of granaries and the regular dredging of the Thames. He was survived by one son, named William, and a daughter who had taken the veil.