While browsing through ancient English wills I came across a series of Carpenter related papers from the very late 1400s and up to 1544. They are very rich in social history. The people concerned seem likely related to the London Carpenters from a century before. The documents are from Berkshire’s Caversham near Reading. A consultation with a good map will show the area as not so far from London and approaching the Wiltshire area, the place so important for later Carpenter history. The first document is the usual real estate related, showing a Thomas Carpenter asserting his claim to “tenement” in the town of Reading in 1483. In later documents Thomas is revealed as a man of importance, as indeed he is the mayor of the town. In addition he is identified as a “mercer”, a maker and dealer of woolens and cloth of a very high quality. His real estate holdings and dispositions are many. A John Carpenter is mentioned. John’s relation to Thomas must be supposed because of his connections to the same property of Thomas at the later date of 1537. John is identified as a “husbandsman” and this we can perhaps assume meant the proprietorship of sheep. Reading was an area known for wool fulling mills at the time. Lastly in a 1544 disposition a son William is identified for John. Here we have all the familiar elements of the Carpenter montage-Johns, wool, politics, much real estate, cloth, Williams and sheep (from A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF ANCIENT DEEDS, vol. I, 1890). Sincerely, Bruce Carpenter