Elizabeth Sleigh d.1686

Elizabeth SLEIGH, later Elizabeth IRETON d.1686

Biographical Note

Daughter of Daniel Winch of West Cheap, London, a wealthy grocer. She married Edmund Sleigh, a London mercer (d.1657), in 1634; they lived in Cheapside. After his death, she married another London mercer, John Ireton (1615-90), who was Lord Mayor of London in 1658-9.

Books

An inventory of Elizabeth's books, dated 1647, survives in Wellcome Library MS 751, and is edited as PLRE 255. It includes 52 books, predominantly theological and devotional, with a few titles relating to practical medicine and household management. The books are mostly in English, with a handful of French ones. In her will, she distributed most of her belongings to her daughters and other relatives, but also left bequests to benefit various nonconformist ministers.

Sources

• Will of Elizabeth Ireton, The National Archives PROB 11/384/22.
• Hackel, H. The Countess of Bridgewater’s London library, in J. Andersen & E. Sauer (eds), Books and readers, 2002, 138-59, 139.
• Fehrenbach, R. J. Lady Elizabeth Ireton, Private Libraries in Renaissance England 8 (2014), 281-92.