John Seman
Mayor of Oxford 1476/7, 1477/8, 1482/3, and 1486/7
John Seman was an Oxford cordwainer. He was appointed a Bailiff on the council in 1459 and again in 1468. He was chosen as one of the four Aldermen in 1463, 1465, 1468, 1469, 1473, 1478, 1485, and 1490.
Seman accompanied the Mayor, John Clark, to the Coronation of Edward IV on 28 June 1461 and was knighted around this time.
Seman was elected Mayor of Oxford in 1476, 1477, 1482, and 1483. He was thus Mayor himself at the time of the Coronation of Richard III on 6 July 1483, but it is unlikely that he attended the Coronation or performed the Oxford mayor’s traditional role of butler at the Coronation feast, as this crown was snatched rather speedily.
Seman was elected Member of Parliament for Oxford in 1478.
Seman appears to have acted as a common lawyer, as a dispute is submitted to his arbitration in the Chancellor’s Court in August 1499. In May 1500 he stood surety that a bond would be produced.
Seman was still an Alderman in 1496, but by January 1501 he was dead.
Seman had a son George, who admitted that his mother Joan, widow of John Seman, owed £3.14.9 to Margaret, widow of Henry Wynge, of London.
The Nicholas Seman who came on to the council in 1469 may be his younger brother
There is also a John Seman on the Mayor’s Council from 1518 to 1522, and in 1524 Oxford’s wealthiest taxpayer (paying £4 10s) was a John Seman, cordwainer of All Saints parish, the employer of nine men.
See also:
- Wood’s City of Oxford, Vol. III, pp. 169–70, where he states that the John Seman, owner of the Red Lion, who was buried at St Martin’s Church in 1529, was the son of the Mayor’s brother William.