John Fressh

John Fressh (sometimes Frossh, Frosh, Frosshe, Fresshe, Fresche or Froysh) (died 6 September 1397) was a citizen, alderman, and Mayor of London in the latter years of the fourteenth century. A merchant by trade, he was a member of the Mercers' Company, a medieval London trade guild, and has been described as one of London's leading citizens of his time.

Fressh's early life is unknown to historians, and he only appears in the records with his marriage to Juliana, the daughter of an influential merchant, in 1373. From then on, promotion within the city's political machinery was swift. He soon became an alderman, or councillor, and undertook service to both the city and the King, Richard II. He encountered personal and political difficulties in 1381 after the Peasants' Revolt. In the early 1380s, he and colleagues in other victualling trade guilds clashed with a reformist tendency within the Common Council led by John Northampton. In revenge, Northampton accused Fressh of treasonously assisting the rebels, and he was imprisoned for a short time. Fressh's party was soon able to take power on the council, however, which saw him restored to favour.

With this exception, Fressh appears to have avoided too many political pitfalls. He concentrated on his mercantile interests, in the process making a lot of money for himself and for colleagues for whom he acted as a broker. However, this was interrupted in 1392, when the King, dissatisfied with the Common Council's running of London affairs, had all the city's officials arrested for a short period and suspended the city's rights to appoint its Mayor and council. This crisis does not seem to have interrupted Fressh for long; he and his colleagues were soon released, and, indeed, in 1394 Fressh was elected Mayor. During his mayoralty, he was accused of imprisoning citizens who criticised him and also oversaw the unusual Rykener case in the mayoral court.

Fressh died a wealthy man in 1397 and was buried in the Church of St Benet Sherehog, which had been receiving his patronage for some years. His wife survived him, and their three daughters made good marriages into the families of Fressh's fellow merchants.