William Cockayne

Sir William Cockayne or Cokayne (1561 – 20 October 1626) was a seventeenth-century merchant, alderman, and Lord Mayor of the City of London. Life He was the second son of William Cokayne of Baddesley Ensor, Warwickshire, merchant of London, sometime governor of the Eastland Company, by Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Medcalfe of Meriden, Warwickshire; and was descended from William Cokayne of Sturston, Derbyshire, a younger son of Sir John Cokayne of Ashbourne in that county. Apprenticed at Christmas 1582 to his father, he was made free of the Skinners' Company by patrimony on 28 March 1590. On his father's death on 28 November 1599 he took over the running of his company.