The founder of this family, which eventually attained such an exalted station, was William de la Pole, an opulent merchant at Kingston-upon-Hull, who left two sons, William and Richard. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 440, Pole, Barons de la Pole, Earls of Suffolk, &c.]