Walter Cave
Mayor of Oxford 1650/1
Walter Cave (c.1602–1662/3) was the second son of Thomas Cave (of St Helen’s, Worcester) and his wife Katharine (daughter of Walter Jones of Witney). He was baptised at St Mary’s Church, Witney on 28 March 1602.
Cave’s parents had married in 1592 and he had three older siblings, all baptised at Witney: Anne on 29 December 1593); Richard (later Sir Richard) on 18 August 1596; and Margaret on 26 August 1599.
On 7 July 1619 Cave was apprenticed to the mercer Thomas Cooper of Oxford, but by the 1630s he had become a brewer.
On 17 February 1630/1 Cave married Alice Williams at Wolvercote. She was the daughter of Thomas Williams of the Star Inn in Cornmarket in St Michael’s parish.
(There is a Walter Cave, described as “chief butler of Exeter College”, who had two children, Thomas and Mary, baptised at St Ebbe’s Church on 1 June 1634 and buried there the next day, but it seems unlikely that this is the same person. This Walter Cave had a sister, Elizabeth, buried at St Ebbe’s on 20 November 1634.)
Walter and Alice Cave had the following two children, always described respectively as the eldest and second son of Walter Cave:
- James Cave
- Walter Cave (baptised at St Michael’s Church on 23 April 1635).
Cave’s wife Alice was buried at St Michael’s Church on 23 August 1635, exactly four months after the baptism of Walter junior.
On 20 December 1638 Cave was admitted to brew by the University, moving to the brewing area in Grandpont. His house was on the west side of St Aldate’s Street, to the south of the present Speedwell Street.
On 13 September 1639, when he was 37 years old, Cave was admitted free by the City , paying the officers’ fees of five shillings. On that same day the Mayor (fellow brewer Thomas Smith) asked that he might request a Bailiff’s place for Cave in lieu of bringing in a son. On 17 September 1639, just four days after gaining his freedom, Cave was duly elected senior bailiff.
Anthony Wood records that Cave married a second wife, Elizabeth Clemson of Abingdon (also known as Jane or Joan): this is likely to be Elizabeth Clempson, daughter of Thomas and Katherine, baptised at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon on 4 September 1606. Cave’s second marriage must have taken place in the late 1630s, around the time he came on to the council. He and Elizabeth appear to have had the following children (who were probably baptised at St Aldate’s, but all the registers for that church prior to 1678 are missing):
- Henry Cave (buried 9 September 1657 at St Aldate’s, described as “son of Walter Cave Esq”)
- Sarah Cave (married Thomas Fifield before 1663)
- Joan Cave (married Matthew Treadwell)
- Elizabeth Cave
- Jane Cave (remained single, buried at St Aldate’s on 9 November 1672, described as “daughter of Mr Walter ye Elder”)
- Clemson Cave
- John Cave
- Abraham Cave.
In September 1642 Cave was appointed one of the Keykeepers. In October that year he contributed £5 of his personal money towards a collection of money to be presented to King Charles I after the Battle of Edgehill.
On 14 June 1645 Cave’s brother, Sir Richard Cave, was killed at the Battle of Naseby.
On 19 February 1647 Cave’s “late servant”, Thomas Wilkinson, was admitted free.
Cave then moved to the higher council posts (helped by a purge by Parliament of the council members who favoured the King), and on 8 August 1648 he was elected one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants in place of Leonard Bowman. Two years later, on 16 September 1650, he was elected Mayor, and selected William Bayly junior, son of William Bayly senior, to have a bailiff’s place as his Child. After his term of office he held the post of Assistant and Keykeeper again.
On 12 October 1655 Balliol College granted a lease to Walter Cave, “beerbrewer” of a messuage at the North West corner of the tenement known as the “Cardinal’s Hat”, which was on the site of the present college, for 15 years for a rent of £4 and two capons. This messuage measured 22ft 6in on the west side, and 37 ft on the east side, with Widow Perfect to the south and Edmund Gayton to the north. In 1658 the lease was renewed to him for 35 years without paying any fine, in the hope that he would rebuild the tenement, which was in poor repair. Eventually, Mrs Cave (his daughter-in-law?) sold the remaining part of the lease in 1675.
In March 1658 Cave paid the council a shilling for a licence to continue the standing of a post to support his house at Carfax. This is probably the corner house at the junction of Cornmarket and the High Street.
On 26 October 1659 Cave was one of the group selected to present letters of congratulation to the Lord Protector.
On 17 September 1660 Leonard Bowman was restored to his position as Assistant, but Cave, because of the respect due to him from the city, was allowed to continue to wear his scarlet gown and take his place in the Council Chamber and at church and at all other public functions according to the seniority that he would have enjoyed had he still been an Assistant.
On 11 April 1661 Thomas Cave, described as the “eldest son of Walter Cave, gent.”, was admitted free.
In August 1661 Cave went out with the Mayor and senior councillors in his scarlet gown with footclothes and footmen to meet the King on his visit to the city.
Cave died on 21 February 1662/3, and was buried at St Aldate’s Church two days later. Anthony Wood used the occasion to provide a potted family history in his diary:
Walter Cave of Grandpoole in the south suburbs of Oxon, brewer, brother to Sir Richard Cave, knight, died at his house in Grandpoole, S., 21 Febr. 1662, and was buried in S. Aldate’s church. He married his first wife, Alice, daughter of Thomas Williams of the Star Inn in Oxon; and to his second, Elizabeth, the daughter of [Thomas] Clemson of Abendon; by both which he had issue.
Cave’s second wife was paying tax on nine hearths in 1665. In 1667 she is described as “relict of a gent.” when she pays 7s. 8d. in poll tax for herself and a shilling for five of her children, who are named: Elizabeth, Jane, Clemson, John, and Abraham. She died the following year, and was buried at St Aldate’s Church on 21 November 1668.
Walter Cave junior, Cave’s son
Walter Cave junior was baptised at St Michael’s Church on 23 April 1635. Described as the “second son of Walter Cave, gent.”, he was granted his freedom on 6 August 1666 (paying the fee of 9s. 6d.), with the proviso that it was to be remembered that this kindness was done for his father’s sake. (He had been born before his father was made free in 1639, which made him ineligible for his freedom by descent.)
On 12 October 1665 Balliol granted a lease to Walter Cave, “beerbrewer” of a messuage at the north-west corner of their present college, measure 22 ft. 6 in. on the west side, and 37 ft on the east side for 15 years, with a rent of £4 and two capons.
In 1667 Walter Cave junior, with a wife and three children, was paying five shillings poll tax in St Aldate’s, but it looks as though his wife died the next year, as Elizabeth Cave, “wife of Mr Walter” was buried at St Aldate’s on 21 November 1668.
Walter Cave junior then married a widow, Mrs Ann Turton, at St Aldate’s Church on 8 November 1670, and they had at least four children:
- Anne (baptised at All Saints on 26 August 1671)
- Katherine (baptised at All Saints on 1 November 1672)
- Jane (baptised at All Saints on 24 February 1673/4)
- Richard (baptised at All Saints on 11 June 1675)
Walter Cave junior was probably dead by 1 May 1703, when Balliol College leased his former property to someone new.
See also:
- PCC Will PROB 11/311 (Will of Walter Cave, Gentleman of Oxford, proved 2 June 1663)
- Strangers in Oxford, pp. 150–152
- For Cave’s ancestry, see thepeerage.com