Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485, in Putney, Surrey, the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, fuller and cloth merchant, and owner of both a hostelry and a brewery. As a successful tradesman, Walter was regularly called upon for jury service and was elected Constable of Putney in 1495. Some think Walter Cromwell to have been of Irish ancestry. Thomas's mother, generally named as Katherine Maverell, was from a recognised "gentry family" in Staffordshire. She lived in Putney in the house of a local attorney, John Welbeck, at the time of her marriage to Walter in 1474.