November 29th , 1521
William Rokeby (died 29 November 1521) was a leading statesman and cleric in early sixteenth-century Ireland, who held the offices of Bishop of Meath, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He is commemorated in the Rokeby Chapels in two Yorkshire churches, St Oswald’s Church, Kirk Sandall, and Halifax Minster.
He was born at Kirk Sandall, near Doncaster, eldest of the five sons of John Rokeby (died 1506).
He went to school at Rotherham; studied at Oxford and became a fellow of King’s Hall, later Trinity College, Cambridge. He became vicar of his home parish in 1487 and was transferred to Halifax, another town for which he had a deep attachment, in about 1499. In 1507 he was made Bishop of Meath.
On the death of Walter Fitzsimon in 1511, Rokeby became Archbishop of Dublin. It has been suggested that h
He was appointed Archdeacon of Surrey on 27 March 1519. By 1521 his health was failing: he retired to Kirk Sandall and died there on 29 November.
In his will he left £200 to rebuild St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, whose tower had collapsed the previous year.
