Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Capon, William (d.1550)

1326420Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 09 — Capon, William (d.1550)1887Sidney Lee

CAPON, WILLIAM (d. 1550), master of Jesus College, Cambridge, the brother of John Capon, alias Salcot [q. v.], was born at Salcot, Essex. He was educated at Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1499, M.A. 1502, and D.D. 1517, and was proctor in 1509. He was fellow of Catharine Hall, held the living of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, and on 21 July 1516 became master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He acted as chaplain to Wolsey, and was nominated in 1528 the first dean of Wolsey's short-lived college at Ipswich. A long letter from Capon to Wolsey, touching the organisation of the college, is printed in Ellis's ‘Original Letters’ (1st ser. i. 185, from ‘MS. Cotton,’ Titus B i. f. 175). In 1534 he resigned the vicarage of Barkway, Hertfordshire, which he had held for several years; in 1537 became prebendary of Wells; from 26 Sept. 1537 was for a few weeks archdeacon of Anglesey; in 1543 was instituted rector of Duxford St. Peter, Cambridgeshire, and prebendary of Bangor. He resigned the mastership of Jesus College in November 1546, and died in 1550.

[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 100; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 94 n. (where the date of Capon's resignation of Barkway is misprinted 1544); Ellis's Letters, 1st ser. i. 185, 3rd ser. ii. 231; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 115, 120, 204.]

S. L. L.