John Hartley
Mayor of Oxford 1580/1
John Hartley (Hartley) (d.1596) was an Oxford fuller. He lived in All Saints parish, and Anthony Wood describes a tenement there belonging to Lincoln College that was known as Ram Hall that was "the house sometimes of old Alderman Hartley, quare".
Hartley compounded for the office of Chamberlain on 4 October 1554, paying £3 6s. 8d. On 5 November 1556 he was granted a lease by the council of "certen voyd ground within the wall est warde from St. Myghells Churche". He appears to have held this land until his death, because in March 1606 his executors paid five shillings for a tenement within the Town Wall in St Michael’s parish.
In 1558/9 Hartley was one of the collectors of the subsidy. He was appointed Junior Bailiff on 29 September 1561, and on 10 November 1561 he and the Senior Bailiff were discommoned by the University because they had violated its privileges; but by 9 December they had achieved a reconciliation.
On 16 September 1562 Hartley was elected one of the 24 Associates to the Mayor.
Several of Hartley’s apprentices were admitted free in the 1560s: Randal Potter in 1562, Cuthbert Atkinson in 1563, and Mark Wyckes in 1568. There is no evidence in the baptism registers of All Saints Church that he had any children, but the burial registers show that a John Hartley, son of John, was buried there on 29 July 1565.
On 1 April 1568 Hartley paid five shillings toward the Lottery in the South-West ward.
On 19 January 1579/80 Hartley was elected an Alderman, and on 29 September 1580 Mayor.
Hartley’s first wife was buried at All Saints Church on 29 November 1583 (according to the parish register) and on 29 November 1590 (according to Anthony Wood): the former seems more likely. His second wife, Joan, was buried there on 12 June 1595.
Hartley remained an Alderman until his death. He was buried at All Saints Church (Wood adds "iuxta duas uxores") on 10 April 1596. He left £10 to be lent interest-free to weavers, fullers, and other freemen.
In the mayoral year 1580/1 Thomas Hartley, the apprentice of the fuller William Jackson, was admitted free: it is possible that this was John Hartley’s son. A Thomas Hartley was buired at All Saints Church on 25 August 1611.