Edward Lock
Mayor of Oxford 1776/7, 1791/2, and 1806/7
Edward Lock (1729–1813) was the son of Edward Lock of Bicester, and was baptised on 20 August 1730 at St Edburgh’s Church. He served his apprenticeship in London, and then came to Oxford to work with the goldsmith John Wilkins. When Wilkins retired in 1759, Lock opened his own shop just across the street at 135 High Street. On 14 June that year he married Hannah Bridge at All Saints Church. They had just one son, Joseph, baptised on 17 April 1760.
Lock was admitted a Freeman of Oxford by Act of Council on 2 February 1660. On 30 September 1762 he was chosen by the Mayor, Anthony Weston, as his Child, which meant that he could immediately be admitted as Chamberlain. In 1764 he was appointed Keykeeper and in 1766 Senior Bailiff. In 1771 he was appointed to a committee to settle the value of the city interest in its houses as a consequence of the Mileways Act
On 3 May 1776 Lock was appointed one of the Mayor’s Assistants and on 30 September 1776 was elected Mayor, nominating John Parsons as his Child .
As well as his council activities, Lock subscribed to the building of Botley Causeway, gave financial support to the Radcliffe Infirmary, invested in the Banbury to Oxford stretch of the Oxford Canal, and was Treasurer of the New Oxford Provident Society. He also served as a magistrate, and when a certain Lucy Bennett tried to sell him a silver spoon, he had her arrested: it transpired that she was the daughter of the butler of Worcester College, and that other spoons were missing: Lucy was transported for seven years.
Lock took on Thomas Jackson as an apprentice in May 1768, his own son Joseph in April 1774 and John Davis in December 1784. His shop was much frequented by Parson Woodforde during his time in Oxford.
In 1787, the year that his wife died, Lock purchased his shop and home (now at 7 High Street) from the Commissioners of the Mileways Act when part of it was to be pulled down to the widen the street. In the 1790s he became a partner in a new bank which opened in his shop until the possession of the adjoining house could be obtained: this later became the University & City Bank.
Lock was elected Mayor a second time in 1791.
In 1801 Lock lost the struggle with a rival banker and Mayor of Oxford, John Parsons, for the position of Alderman (said to cost each of them £400), but just one year later he was given an Alderman’s place as well; and in 1806, at the age of 76, he stood against Parsons again for Mayor, and this time won.
Lock died at the age of 83 on 11 September 1814 and and was buried three days later at All Saints Church in Oxford, where there is a memorial to him. He left his sister Elizabeth Pavior four shillings a week during her natural life provided she remained widow, and everything else to his son Joseph.
See also:
- Joseph Lock, Mayor 1813, 1829 (Edward Lock’s son)
- Arthur G. Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697–1837: Their marks and lives
- Ann Natalie Hansen, Oxford Goldsmiths before 1800 (At the Sign of the Cock, 1996), pp. 96–102
- C.F.C. Beeson, Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (Oxford: Museum of the History of Science, 1989), pp. 126–7
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 11 September 1813, p. 3b (death notice)
- Oxford Times, 5 October 1990, p. 19: "Finding the key to Lock the goldsmith"
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entries numbered 2335, 2497, and 2749
- PCC Will PROB 11/1554 (Will of Edward Lock, Goldsmith of Oxford, proved 7 March 1814)