Dr Hannes Kleineke of our Commons 1461-1504 Section explores how Paddington Bear’s favourite sweet treat was traded by some members of the late medieval House of Commons…

This blog must start with a disclaimer: there is of course no evidence (and no suggestion) that the Peruvian bear ever sat in the British House of Commons. What we do know, however, is that late medieval Members traded, inter alia, in quantities of marmalade, which they imported from the Iberian peninsula.

One such Member was the London draper John Fenkyll who represented the city of London in Edward IV’s final Parliament of January 1483, and Richard III’s assembly of 1484. If Fenkyll’s membership of the London drapers’ company (of which he was master three times) suggests a focus on the trade in English cloth, it was nevertheless customary for English ships to return home with cargoes of the exports that could be purchased in the lands to which they had ferried their cloth. In the case of the Iberian peninsula, this meant iron, olive oil, fruit, and ultimately, marmalade. At the time, the preserve in question was probably still made from quinces, the hard, pear-like fruits, called ‘marmelo’ in Portuguese, which gave the sugared variety its name.

It was in February 1477 that two London customs officers, John Barbour and Hugh Amorye, discovered on Tower wharf in London a barrel of marmalade, alongside a ‘coffin’ filled with ‘farts’ of Portugal, and seized them in the King’s name as forfeit, as the customs due on them had not been paid. Its owner, as was rapidly established was John Fenkyll who within a few years would be elevated to the rank of one of London’s aldermen. Fenkyll, needless to say, denied that the barrel and the coffin had been intended for sale, and claimed their contents as his personal property. The outcome of the dispute is unknown, but however small the barrel was, it does nevertheless seem rather a large quantity of marmalade for Fenkyll to have consumed himself. Even more obscure are the ‘farts’: these are thought to have been a type of light pastry puffs eaten as sweet meats, which were in the period imported from Portugal in their thousands.

Regrettably, it is impossible to know what part Fenkyll played in the proceedings of what would in the event remain Richard III’s sole Parliament. At the time, he was still in the early stages of his career: in the autumn of 1485 he was elected alderman of Aldergate ward, moving to Bridge ward in 1490. He served as sheriff of the city in 1487-8, as well as heading the Drapers’ company on no fewer than three successive occasions during the 1480s and 1490s. Knighted in early 1487, Fenkyll lived on until 1499. He had been married twice, but apparently left no surviving children, so his ultimate heirs were the children of his brother Edward. On them he settled his extensive estates; whether he also left them a pot of marmalade remains unknown.

H.W.K.