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HERCULES CLAY PENNY LOAF DAY
Hercules Clay Penny Loaf Day. The reception in the Town Hall is attended by about 100 guests. Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England 7th March 2015.
Hercules Clay Penny Loaf Day. Hercules Clay a wealthy cloth merchant who was a former Newark businessman and in 1644 Royalist Mayor of the town during the English Civil War. For three nights in a row he dreampt of his house burning and he took this as an omen, moving out just before the house was indeed damaged by a “grenado”, a mortar shell fired by the besieging Parliamentary forces. He died in 1645, and in his Will he left a legacy providing for an annual sermon in which the preacher was to ‘exhort the people not to set their affections on things of this world but by their good works to lay … hold on eternal life’, and for bread to be distributed to the poor.
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