History of New York City (1665–1783) port British ships evacuated in 1783. The English had renamed the colony the Province of New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and on June 12, 1665, appointed Thomas Willett the first of the Mayors of New York. The city grew northward and remained the largest and most important city in the Province of New York, becoming the third largest in the British Empire after London and Philadelphia. The Dutch regained the colony briefly in 1673, then finally lost it permanently to the English in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Leisler's Rebellion, an uprising in which
Thomas Bell (Mayor of Gloucester) Thomas Bell (Mayor of Gloucester) Sir Thomas Bell the Elder (1486–1566) was a cap manufacturer, mayor of Gloucester, and member of Parliament. He was one of the city's largest employers and wealthiest citizens and a great benefactor of the city and its people. He is described in contemporaneous documents as a "capper". He invested much of his wealth in real estate released on the Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes in partnership with Richard Duke (c. 1515-1572), of Otterton, Devon, Clerk of the Court of Augmentations. He was thrice Mayor of Gloucester (1535–36, 1543–44 and 1553–54) and served four times as