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
William Laxton (Lord Mayor of London) feast, after which the hearse was dismantled. He was buried in the tomb of Henry Keble (died 1518), Lord Mayor and four times Master of the Grocers, in St Mary Aldermary; a fact which outraged John Stow, since Keble had been responsible for the rebuilding of the church and was thereby 'unkindly cast out'. However Keble's monument had formed a chantry, which like other London chantries was deprived of its superstitious uses under Edward VI and then re-granted to the relevant Craft. It is also stated that Keble's tomb had been ransacked during a riot. Its re-use by Laxton in