Edward Coombes
Mayor of Oxford 1685/6
Edward Coombes (or Combs/Combes/Coumes) (c.1639–1693) was the son of Thomas Coombes, a mercer of the parish of St Peter-in-the-East, and the grandson of Walter Coombes, a yeoman of Nuneham. He and his siblings were as follows:
- Edward (probably born 1639)
- Other siblings are likely in the 1640s, including Richard (dead by 1668)
- Thomas (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 16 November 1651, and may be the Thomas Coombes buried there on 3 September 1661)
- Walter I (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 1 December 1652 and died in infancy)
- David (baptised St Peter-in-the-East church on 1 March 1654/5)
- William (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 9 March 1656/7 and buried there on 6 December 1662)
- Walter II (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 16 July 1660).
In 1652 young Edward’s father was elected on to the city council, and in 1653 he took on young Edward as an apprentice. He did not live long enough to reach high office on the council, as he died on 2 September 1661, just after Edward had finished his apprenticeship.
It appears that in 1661 Coombes took over his father’s shop (which was on the site of the present Eastgate Hotel) jointly with his brother Walter II, who was also a mercer. In 1665 Coombes paid tax on three hearths on a property in that area.
Coombes had the following three children:
- Walter (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 16 September 1664)
- Mary (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 4 April 1666)
- Catherine (baptised at St Peter-in-the-East church on 28 April 1671).
Coombes was assessed as follows for poll tax in St Peter-in-the-East parish in March 1667:
- For himself, his wife, and his two children: one shilling each
- For his apprentice Edward Morice: poll tax of one shilling each
His widowed mother Jane was separately assessed at one shilling each for herself, her son Walter, and Constance Betts.
Edward’s mother Jane (or Joan, according to the burial register) died on 12 November 1668. Anthony Wood records the following monumental inscription in St Peter-in-the-East Church:
Here lyeth the body of Thomas Combes of this parish, mercer, who deceased the 2d of Sept. 1661, and of Jane his wife, who deceased the 12 of Nov. 1668 and of their 5 children, Thomas, Walter, Richard, David, and William.
Coombes was first elected on to the Common Council on 30 September 1670. He came in and swore his oaths on 10 October, paying a £4 fine for not having first served as Constable. On 30 September 1674 he was elected City Chamberlain, and on 15 September 1679 Senior Bailiff.
On 30 July 1683 Coombes was elected one of the eight Mayor’s Assistants, but refused to assume the office or take the oaths, and was fined £100. On 7 August, however, he came in and took his oaths, and the council remitted the huge fine imposed at the previous Council.
On 14 September 1685 Coombes was elected Mayor, and chose John Pead as his Chamberlain.
On 11 May 1691 a lease of his father’s old shop near the East Gate was renewed to Coombes for a fine of £22. This fine was set low because he civilly treated the Mayor and his attendants each year at the renewing of reparations.
Coombes died ("of the stone", according to Anthony Wood) on 14 October 1693. He was buried inside the church of St Peter-in-the-East three days later.
In 1696 a Mrs Coombes paid tax on twenty windows in one property and on two windows in another in the parish of in St Peter-in-the-East.
Coombes’s family
Coombes’s brother Walter appears to have outlived him, as a mercer of that name was buried in the St Peter-in-the-East church on 5 February 1710/11.
See also:
- PCC Will PROB 11/420 (Will of Edward Combes, Mercer of Oxford, proved 9 May 1694)
- (on Coombes’s father): H. Salter, Surveys and Tokens, pp. 396–7, and tokens numbered 35–38 with "THOMAS COOMBES NEARE " around an image of the Grocers' Arms on the obverse, and "THE EAST GATE IN OXON " around the initials T.C.