Katherine Barnardiston (died 1633) was an English patron of puritanism.
Life
She was born in the centre of London in the parish of
St Michael-le-Querne. She first married Bartholomew Soame and they lived in the parish of
St Mary Colechurch
St Mary Colechurch was a parish church in the City of London. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt.
History
The church was situated at the junction of Poultry and the south end of Old Jewry. Named after its first ...
. Soame died in 1596.
She then married Thomas the eldest child of Sir Thomas Barnardiston of Witham, Essex in 1599. She was his second wife and he had children from his first marriage including
Nathaniel Barnardiston
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston (1588 – 25 July 1653) of Kedington, alias Ketton, Suffolk was an English (East Anglian) landowner, magistrate and senior representative of a long-established knightly family, one of the wealthiest in Suffolk, ...
.
In 1603 she became Lady Barnardiston when her husband was knighted and she kept this name and her place of residence when her husband died in 1610.
Two years after becoming a widow she married William Towse who was a lawyer.
When she died in 1633 she left a detailed will. Her husband had died the year before. One of the substantial donations was to
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
St Catharine's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The colle ...
. She left the college £400 to fund three scholars who could not otherwise afford to study.
Her tomb is in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, in Kedington,
which is surprising as she had requested to be buried in her home parish and is not clear if this happened.
References
16th-century births
1633 deaths
Year of birth unknown
17th-century philanthropists
British women philanthropists
17th-century women philanthropists
{{Philanthropist-stub