Samuel Birch (Lord Mayor of London) advocacy of the Protestant ascendency in Ireland. In 1811, he was appointed one of the sheriffs of London, and on 9 November 1814 Birch entered on his duties as lord mayor. Tory though he was, he opposed the Corn Bill of 1815, and presided at a meeting of the livery in common hall on 23 February 1815, when he made a vigorous attack upon the intended prohibition of the free importation of foreign corn. The course he took on this occasion is commemorated by a medal struck in his honour on the obverse side of which is the bust of
John Tate (Lord Mayor of London) in 1497. He was a generous benefactor to St. Anthony's Hospital, St Benet Fink in the City of London in which connection John Stow in his "Survey of London" (1598) wrote of him as follows: He had married Magdalen and had 3 sons, of which the youngest, Bartholomew, was made his heir. John Tate (Lord Mayor of London) Sir John Tate (died 1515) was twice Lord Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament. He was born the son of Thomas Tate of Coventry and became a mercer of the City of London, initially apprenticed to his uncle, John Tate,