John Hales (died 1572)  John Hales (c.1516 – 26 or 28 December 1572) was a writer, administrator, and member of parliament during the Tudor period. John Hales was the son of Thomas Hales of Hales Place, Halden, Kent, and of 'the daughter of Trefoy of the county of Cornwall'. He had four brothers and a sister:   According to Lowe, Hales may have spent some time at Oxford, but 'was largely a self-taught scholar of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and the law'. He spent his early years in the household of Sir Christopher Hales, Attorney General and Master of the Rolls, and after nine years' service there, was dismissed after having expressed a wish to leave his employment. By 1535 he was in the service of Thomas Cromwell. In 1537 he was appointed clerk to Sir John Gostwick in the office of First Fruits and Tenths, and by 1541 had become deputy to the Clerk of the Hanaper, Sir Ralph Sadler. In 1545 Hales and Sadler were granted a joint patent for the office. According to Bindoff, the records show that Hales 'bore the brunt of the work' at the Hanaper, and in addition assisted Sadler with his duties as Master of the Great Wardrobe. On 6 June 1540, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Hales purchased from Sir Richard Morison the former Priory of St Mary Without Bishopsgate in London for £500, and on 16 December 1544 purchased from Sir Ralph Sadler the former monastery of the Whitefriars in Coventry for £83 12s 6d. Hales converted part of the Whitefriars into a residence, Hales Place, and set up a free grammar school in what had been the choir. In 1545 he was granted licence to establish the free school as King Henry VIII School in the former St John's Hospital in Coventry. Hales provided lands valued at 200 marks for the school's maintenance. When King Edward VI came to the throne in 1547, Hales was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Warwickshire, and became a member of parliament for Preston, Lancashire. Hales supported the economic policies pursued by the young King's uncle, Protector Somerset. Hales was particularly opposed to the enclosure of land, and is said to have been the most active of the commissioners appointed in 1548 to redress this evil.