John Harte (mayor)

Sir John Harte was a 16th-century English merchant who was one of the principal founders of the English East India Company as well as a Lord Mayor of London.^[1] He was a native of Kilburn who became a grocer in the city of London.^[2] He was elected one of the Sheriffs of London in 1579, serving with future mayor Martin Calthorp, and later elected Lord Mayor of London in 1589.^[3] He purchased a large mansion, known as Oxford House, that had once belonged to the Earls of Oxford and later to Lord Mayor Ambrose Nicholas.^[4] One of his daughters married Sir George Bolles, a later Lord Mayor of London.^[5] Harte died in 1604.

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