John Brayne
| Big John Brayne | |
|---|---|
| Spouse(s) | Margaret Stowers |
Issue
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| Father | Thomas Brayne |
| Mother | Alice Barlow |
| Born | c. 1541 London |
| Died | June 1586 (aged 44–45) London |
| Buried | St Mary Matfelon |
John Brayne (c. 1541 – June 1586) was a member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers. He built the Red Lion playhouse, and financed, with his brother-in-law, James Burbage, the building of the Theatre in Shoreditch, in which he was to have had a half interest. He also leased the George Inn in Whitechapel with a friend, Robert Miles. The latter two ventures, particularly the financing of the Theatre, bankrupted him, and he fell out with both James Burbage and Robert Miles. It was suspected that his death in 1586 was caused by blows received during an altercation with Miles. His widow, Margaret, backed financially by Miles, was involved in litigation with Burbage over Brayne's half interest in the Theatre until her own death in 1593.
John Brayne, born in about 1541, was the eldest child of Thomas Brayne (d.1562), a London tailor, and Alice Barlow (d.1566). He had a sister, Ellen Brayne (c. 1542–1613), who on 23 April 1559 married James Burbage (c. 1531–1597).
On 13 March 1554 he was apprenticed to the London grocer John Bull. After completing his apprenticeship he carried on business in Bucklersbury in London, where he also had a house. On 14 January 1565 he married Margaret Stowers, by whom he had four children who were baptized at St Stephen Walbrook and died young: Robert (b.1565), Roger (b.1566), Rebecca (b.1568) and John (b.1573), and possibly a posthumous daughter, Katherine (d.1593).
In 1567 Brayne hired two carpenters to build a playhouse in the yard of the Red Lion, a farmhouse east of Aldgate near Mile End. According to Berry this was the first professional playhouse in the British Isles specifically built for that purpose 'since Roman times'. It consisted of a stage, with scaffolds for seating the audience, and Brayne is thought to have spent no more than £15 on its construction. The first play scheduled to be performed there was The Story of Sampson, on 8 July 1567, but nothing further is known about the performance or the theatre itself.
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