He was listed as Master of the Cloth Workers Company in 1551.696

He was inscribed as "Arminger" by King Edward VI in 1548. An Arminger is an 1034squire, one next in degree to a Knight and entitled to bear arms. 696

He took Freeman Oath in 1526 in London, England.696

Adam Winthrop left his home at the age of seventeen and bound himself as an apprentice to Edward Altham in London for ten years. A clothier, Altham was elected to be Sheriff of London. After fulfilling his contract, Winthrop became a citizen of London in 1526.
According to Mayo, he worked hard and advanced in the Clothworkers' Company of London, and by 1551, he was chosen a Master of the Company, although his progress was not without a few bumps in the road. In 1538, as one of the Stewards, he was chastised "for disobeying the wardens in the search because that he would not suffer them to carry the cloth out of his house." Noting drying that Winthrop may have been "a little too enterprising for his own immediate good," Mayo states in 1543, he served time in the Fleet Prison and could not get out until he paid 600 pounds into the royal coffers. "His offense was negotiating with foreigners contrary to an edict of the King of England, but we do not know the nature of the negotiations which proved to be so expensive."
His offence could not have been too costly to him, however, because the very next year he purchased the Manor of Groton. With the prucase he became Lord of the Manor and Patron of the Church, for the property carried with it the right to name the local rector.
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The Clopton Chronicles http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~clopton/winthrop.htm
Four years later Edward, VI granted him arms and the rank of Gentleman. The arms were confirmed to his son, John, in 1592.697