career in the neighbouring borough of Stratford-on-Avon. There
he soon set up as a trader in all manner of agricultural produce. Corn,
wool, malt, meat, skins, and leather were among the commodities in which
he dealt. Documents of a somewhat later date often describe him as a
glover. Aubrey, Shakespeare's first biographer, reported the tradition
that he was a butcher. But though both designations doubtless indicated
important branches of his business, neither can be regarded as disclosing
its full extent. The land which his family farmed at Snitterfield
supplied him with his varied stock-in-trade. As long as his father lived
he seems to have been a frequent visitor to Snitterfield, and, like his
father and brothers, he was until the date of his father's death
occasionally designated a farmer or 'husbandman' of that place. But it
was with Stratford-on-Avon that his life was mainly identified.

His settlement at Stratford.

In April 1552 he was living there in Henley Street, a thoroughfare
leading to the market town of Henley-in-Arden, and he is first mentioned
in the borough records as paying in that month a fine of twelve-pence for
having a dirt-heap in front of his house. His frequent appearances in
the years that follow as either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard in
the local court of record for the recovery of small debts suggest that he
was a keen man of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and in
October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at Stratford--one, with a
garden, in Henley Street (it adjoins that now known as the poet's
birthplace), and the other in Greenhill Street with a garden and croft.
Thenceforth he played a prominent part in municipal affairs. In 1557 he
was elected an ale-taster, whose duty it was to test the quality of malt
liquors and bread. About the same time he was elected a burgess or town
councillor, and in September 1558, and again on October 6, 1559, he was
appointed one of the four petty constables by a vote of the jury of the
court-leet. Twice--in 1559 and 1561--he was chosen one of the
affeerors--officers appointed to determine the fines for those offences
which were punishable arbitrarily, and for which no express penalties
were prescribed by statute. In 1561 he was elected one of the two
chamberlains of the borough, an office of responsibility which he held
for two years. He delivered his second statement of accounts to the
corporation in January