Background
He was born at Bristol in 1399 or 1400, a member of a wealthy family of merchants and cloth manufacturers in that city. He was one of the younger of seven children of John Canynges, who died as a young man in 1405, by his wife Joan Wotton. William's eldest brother Thomas Canynges was Lord Mayor of London in 1456-7, having been elected Alderman for Aldgate ward in 1445, and was a Grocer. William's grandfather William I Canynges(d.1396) was also a great Bristol merchant and was also 5 times Mayor of Bristol and 3 times MP for Bristol, in 1383, 1384 and 1386. His 2nd son John Canynges, the father of William II, was also prominent in Bristol civic life, serving twice as mayor and as MP for Bristol in 1383. His wife Joan Wotton survived him and married secondly in about 1408 Thomas Young, twice mayor of Bristol, by whom she had two successful sons, John Young, Alderman of London, Grocer and Lord Mayor of London in 1466, and Thomas Young(d.1476) a lawyer of the Middle Temple, Recorder of Bristol from 1441 and MP for Bristol almost continuously, with one break in 1453, between 1435 to 1455. Thomas Young served as the other of Bristol's two MP's during his half-brother William II Canynges's terms as MP in 1450 and 1455, and before 1450 entered into the household of Richard, Duke of York(d.1460), the Yorkist contender for heirship to the Throne then occupied by Henry VI(1422-1461).
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