William Chillingworth
Mayor of Oxford 1644/5
William Chillingworth (or Shillingworth) (c.1579–1653) was the son of Richard Chillingworth. He served an apprenticeship with the Oxford mercer Thomas Chillingworth, who is very likely to have been a relation.
On 4 February 1600 Chillingworth was admitted free, and on 17 September that year he and a young cordwainer were jointly awarded the use of the £20 left by Doctor Case to the city, to be returned after six years.
Four months after setting up business on his own, on 19 June 1600, Chillingworth married Jane (also known as Joan) Penn at St Andrew’s Church, Headington. Their children included:
- Anne (baptised at St Martin’s on 25 March 1600/1, buried there on 25 August 1601)
- William (baptised at St Martin’s on 31 October 1602)
- Joan (baptised at St Martin’s on 14 July 1605, buried there on 20 June 1605 )
- John (baptised at St Martin’s on 7 April 1609, buried there on 17 August 1608 )
- Maria (died in infancy).
Wood records that the family lived "in a little house on the north side of the conduit at Quatervois" (Carfax), which would have been in St Martin’s parish. Chillingworth may have had literary or theological interests, as the future Archbishop Laud (then a Fellow of St John’s College) was his friend and godfather to his son William, who after grammar school in Oxford proceeded to Trinity College, Oxford.
On 6 October 1606 Chillingworth was elected on to the Common Council, and in August 1609 his first apprentice (Ralf Smith) was admitted free; his second (Thomas Davies) followed in May the next year.
In 1609 and 1610 Chillingworth served as Churchwarden at St Martin’s Church at Carfax.
On 28 September 1613 it was agreed that Chillingworth should have a bailiff’s place gratis at the request of the outgoing Mayor, Ralph Flexney.
Chillingworth’s third apprentice (Thomas Cooper) was admitted free in October 1614, and his fourth (John Spencer) in December 1618.
In September 1618 the council agreed that Chillingworth could set out a chimney at Paradise House, paying 6d as a languable.
On 15 October 1619 Chillingworth’s son William was admitted as a Scholar of Trinity College and matriculated at the University of Oxford.
In October 1626 Chillingworth agreed to be one of the two council money-masters for Dame Margaret Northern’s money, and he held this post each year until 1643, when he was elected one of the eight Assistants.
In September 1644 Chillingworth and Alderman Charles were sent by the house to the Commons as candidates for the Mayoralty, and Chillingworth was at last elected Mayor after 38 years on the council. At his request the mercer John Hunt, who was on the common council, was given a bailiff’s place, and John Lambe was chosen as Mayor’s Chamberlain.
By 1631 Chillingworth was the occupant of Paradise House in St Ebbe’s, suggesting that he had retired from being a High Street mercer. Certainly in March 1633 he is described as a gentleman when he was granted a 40-year lease by the Council of the Jews' Mount in St Peter-le-Bailey parish.
In 1642 Chillingworth contributed £4 towards a gift to the King when he came to Oxford after the Battle of Edgehill.
On 15 July 1645 Chillingworth’s wife, Joan (Jane), was buried at St Ebbe’s Church.
In November 1647 Chillingworth and one other councillor were given permission to come to council meetings in their cloaks.
In December 1651 it is recorded that Chillingworth had suffered great damage because the Jews Mounts, which he leased from the City, were "laid levill by reason of the fortificacions of the Castle", and that it was agreed that he could renew the lease without paying a fine.
In June 1651 Chillingworth lent the City £18 towards the payment of a new Mace.
Chillingworth was buried at St Ebbe’s Church on 31 October 1652. He left the city a legacy of £40 to repair the stairs to the Council Chamber, and £20 to be lent interest-free to two young freemen, a mercer and a shoemaker (the latter exactly reflecting the loan that had given him and his companion such a good start in life 53 years before).
William Chillingworth junior
Chillingworth’s son William (1602–1644) became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1623. He had a short and chequered career, but in the 1630s became a moderately eminent Laudian clergyman, royalist, and controversialist. He too left a bequest in his will to help young tradesmen:
I give to the Maior and Corporation of Oxford four hundred Pounds to be payd by fiftie pounds a year in eight years. And as it is payd I would have it lent to poore young Tradesmen by fiftie Pounds a piece for Tenne yeares, they giving good securitie to repay it at Tenne yeares….
See also:
- PCC Will PROB 11/229 (Will of William Chillingworth, Gentleman, proved 11 June 1653)
- Dictionary of National Biography entry on Chillingworth’s son William
- C.J. H. Fletcher, Carfax Church, Oxford, pp. 57–9, on Chillingworth’s son William