Alice Tooley

Alice Tooley (née Purpet, ?1480-1556), was a business woman who, after the death of her husband, became a freewoman of Ipswich.

Henry Tooley was one of the town's richest merchants. They traded mainly in cloth from their property on St Mary's Quay. None of their three children survived adolescence. When Henry was away, Alice supervised shipments, collected debts, made payments and kept everything running. Henry died in 1551, and left most of his money to the townspeople of Ipswich, including the Foundation for the almshouses. Alice saw these become a reality before her death in 1556. Alice and Henry's tomb is at St Mary at the Quay church.

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, a major regeneration project took place to restore the church which reopened in November 2016 as a Heritage and Well-being venue, run by Suffolk Mind, called Quay Place. Until June 2020 Suffolk Mind remained the primary tenant of the building but due to the impacts of the Covid-19 lockdown, they made the difficult decision not to reopen. Since 2021, the church reopened as River Church Ipswich who too have placed community and wellbeing at the centre of their vision. However, the brass (pictured above) remains on display in the building. 

The almshouses, named Tooley's Court, were rebuilt on the same site in the 19th century.

See 2 on History Trail