On this day in 1606 Percivall Jackson was committed to the Compter for several “contempts to this house”.
Percivall Jackson was admitted to the Company on 22 January 1604 having been the apprentice of Randulph Pyatt. He was licensed to open his shop on 12 February 1604.
Jackson appears a few times in the volume of Court minutes from 1598 to 1607. On 14 October 1605 Jackson’s apprentice, Francis Morris, was turned over to another freeman of the Company and Jackson was required to give him 5s to buy shirts. A week later, Jackson was ordered to deliver to the Court the apprenticeship indenture and clothes belonging to Francis Morris.
After being committed to the Compter on 23 September 1606, Jackson was released from prison upon his mother’s entreaty and promised to pay 13s. 4d. to Richard Mapes (Master 1612) for a debt that he owed to John Burrows. However on 13 October Jackson was committed to the Compter again.
A compter was a small prison mainly for debtors. The Compter in question is likely to have been the Wood Street Compter which was built in 1555, destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, and rebuilt on the same site by 1670. It closed in 1791 and was demolished the following year.
Image: Wood Street Compter from "Old and New London" by George Walter Thornbury. London: Cassell & Co, [1887]-93.
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