John Sheppard

John Sheppard (also Shepherd, c. 1515 – December 1558) was an English composer of the Renaissance.

Biography Sheppard was probably born around 1515, judging from his statement in 1554 that he had been composing music for twenty years. Nothing certain is known about his early life. The first sighting of him occurs at Thaxted in Essex, in June 1541 when he married the recently widowed Jane Ewen or Evan. He was then probably in his mid-twenties. It is not known whether he held a musical position in the church of St John the Baptist, Thaxted. He then served as informator choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford continuously from Michaelmas 1543 to sometime between March and Michaelmas 1548.

Sheppard next appears in a list of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal who sang at the funeral of King Edward VI in August 1553; he may have joined the chapel directly after his departure from Oxford, but, because of a gap in Chapel Royal records from 1547, this cannot be proved. He appears to have remained active at the chapel up to the year of his death since he was awarded liveries for both the funeral of Queen Mary and the coronation of Elizabeth I. In March 1556 he witnessed the will of a fellow Gentleman of the chapel, Luke Caustell, and on New Year's Day 1557 he presented three rolls of songs to Mary Tudor. In July 1558 he and his Chapel Royal colleague Richard Edwards were granted the reversion of a lease of a manor in Kent.

Sheppard died in December 1558 during an influenza epidemic. He made his will on 1 December and was buried at St Margaret's, Westminster on 21 December.