Thomas Quiney - Business and Municipal Offices

Business and Municipal Offices

Quiney was a vintner and dealt in tobacco. He held the lease to a house known as “Atwood's” for the purpose of running a tavern, and later traded houses with his brother-in-law, William Chandler, for the larger house known as “The Cage” where he set up his vintner's shop in the upper half. He is recorded as selling wine to the corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon as late as 1650.

He was a man of some education, with knowledge of French and calligraphy. In signing his accounts for 1621 and 1622 as chamberlain he decorated them with a couplet in French from a romance by Mellin de Saint-Gelais. Quiney writes “Bien heureux est celui qui pour devenir sage, Qui pour le mal d'autrui fait son apprentissage” but the original is “Heureux celui qui pour devenir sage, Du mal d'autrui fait son apprentissage”. The original translates into English as “Happy is he who to become wise, serves his apprenticeship from other men's troubles” but Quiney's version “… is ungrammatical and without sense”.

He was a well-respected man in the borough, and was elected a burgess and constable in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1617. In 1621 and 1662 he was acting Chamberlain. In signing his accounts for 1622–3, he did so "with flourishes”, but the records show that the council voted them “imperfect”. Quiney did not attend this meeting, but he did attend the later meeting where the accounts were passed, so they appear to have needed further explanation.

Quiney's reputation was slightly spotted; he was fined for swearing and for “suffering townsmen to tipple in his house”, and was at one point in danger of prosecution for “dispensing unwholesome and adulterated wine”.