William Bayly, Mayor of Oxford

William Bayly

Mayor of Oxford 1666/7 and 1681/2

William Bayly (or Baylie/Bailey/Baley/Bayley/Baylye) (1620–1683) was the son of the Oxford white-baker of the same name. (His father was also on the council from 1611 to 1664, but never rose higher than Bailiff.)

Bayly was apprenticed first to the mercer William Harris, and then to Messrs Pawling and Potter, mercers, but was "never properly turned over as is the custom", and was eventually granted his freedom (as the second son of William Bayly senior) for 9s. 6d. and officers' fees on 10 September 1644.

Bayly had the following four daughters. His wife in 1665 was Mayris or Mary, but it is possible he also had an earlier wife:

Elizabeth
Alice
Mary (baptised at St Michael’s Church on 28 October 1647)
Sarah (baptised at St Michael’s Church 12 July 1655).

Bayly was elected on to the Common Council on 4 October 1647, and was appointed a Keykeeper the next year. On 1 October 1650 he was chosen as Mayor’s Child by Walter Cave, and was immediately awarded a Bailiff’s place.

On 21 March 1650/1 William Bayly, described as a mercer of St Michael’s parish, was granted a licence to hang out a sign showing a pestle and mortar. This was probably on the site of 44 Cornmarket, where he had a tenement in 1653.

Bayley was elected Senior Bailiff on 19 September 1653, and on 1 October 1660 one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants. In August 1661 he went out with the Mayor and senior councillors in a scarlet gown with footclothes and footmen to meet the King on his visit to the city.

Bayly’s s apprentice John Payne was admitted free on 16 April 1661.

By 1665 Bayly paid tax on five hearths in St Martin’s parish (probably on premises behind 52 and 53 Cornmarket). He was assessed as follows for poll tax at this address in March 1667:

For himself: £4 1s. 0d. (£1 for his title, poll tax of one shilling, and £3 tax on his money). This indicates that Bayly' s personal wealth was £300, as the tax on personal estate was £1 per £100.
For his wife Mayris: poll tax of one shilling
For his daughters Elizabeth, Alice, Mary, and Sarah: poll tax of one shilling each
For his apprentices Richard Keate and George Wickham: poll tax of one shilling each
For his servant Mary Pitte: three shillings (i.e. one shilling in the pound on her yearly wages of £2, plus poll tax of a shilling)

On 2 March 1666 Bayly was chosen as one of the Aldermen, taking the usual oath and subscribing to the declaration, and giving the macebearer 20s. and a purse and £10 according to custom. On 17 September 1666 he was elected Mayor, and on 1 October he took the three oaths and subscribed to the engagement in the Corporations Act, paying the Keykeeper £13 for entertainment and £5 according to custom. He nominated the milliner John Bishop as his Child and Abraham White as his Chamberlain.

On 4 March 1667, while still Mayor, he was chosen Coroner, and subscribed the declaration and took the three oaths: he remained coroner until 1 September 1673. On 14 September 1668 he was elected Commissioner for Barges.

From 1677 it is specified that Bayly was Alderman for the South-West ward.

On 19 September 1681 Bayly was again elected Mayor. He proposed Edward Spencer as his Child and Arthur Madle as his Chamberlain. In January 1682 he took a petition on behalf of the City to King Charles II.

Bayly died on 18 July 1683 at the age of 63 and was buried at St Martin’s Church, Carfax eight days later. His flat memorial stone (which was relaid in All Saints Church near the pulpit when St Martin’s was demolished) read:

In hope of a joyful resurrection Here lieth enterred y^e body of Wiliam Bayly, Alderman and twice Mayor of this city, who dyed in y^e 64 yeare of his age, July y^e 18, Anno Dni. 1683.

When St Martin's church was demolished in 1896, Bayly's bones were transferred with the rest to an unknown communal grave in Holywell Cemetery.

In his will of June 1683 Bayly made his wife Mary his chief heir and executrix, and she remained in the same house, where in 1696 she paid tax on twelve windows. She lived to the age of 89 and was buried at St Martin’s Church on 25 May 1702 (with the entry also recorded in the St Michael burial register).

See also:

Wood MS. F 29 A, fol. 346 (epitaph of Bayly)
PCC Will PROB 11/374 (Will of William Bayly, Mercer of Oxford, proved 9 November 1683)
H. Salter, Surveys and Tokens, pp. 380–1, and tokens numbered 17 and 18, with "WILLIAM BALEY OF OXON" around an image of a mortar with two pestles on the obverse, and "AT THE MORTAR AND PEST" around the initials W.B. on the reverse