George Tonge
Mayor of Oxford 1781/2 and 1795/6
George Tonge (or Tongue/Tounge) (1730–1803) was the son of fisherman Henry Tonge and his wife Hannah Vincent. Henry was described as being of St Martin’s parish and Hannah of All Saints parish when they married at All Saints Church on 2 February 1724. They baptised six children that church: George himself (3 April 1730); Hannah (20 April 1734); Anne (21 March 1735); Henry (4 July 1738, buried the next month); John (28 January 1739/40); and William (12 April 1741). It looks as though Hannah, Henry, John, and William may also have died in infancy.
George Tonge was apprenticed to the goldsmith John Wilkins (who himself had been Mayor in 1734 and 1744) in May 1746. He continued to work for Wilkins (and latterly his wife) until the business closed in 1759. It was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 2 June 1759 that Tonge was opening a shop near the Bear Inn at the back of the High Street, and he was was admitted free on 12 November that year.
Tonge advertised that he offered a "good Assortment of the neatest, and most fashionable Plate of all Sorts". In August 1762 he took his own first apprentice, William Jones, the son of the late Thomas Jones, a fishmonger of Oxford’s High Street. He took on Richard Hickman as an apprentice in April 1766 and Thomas Turner in March 1773. Tonge supplied silver to Oxford colleges and plate to St Mary’s Church between 1764 and 1774. Tonge’s shop was later on the north side of the High Street, in All Saints parish, and was demolished to make way for the 1774 covered market.
Tonge first took up one of the 24 places on the Council on 30 September 1762, paying the keykeeper £3. 10s. in lieu of entertainments and 3s. 4d. for not being constable. On 30 September 1765 he purchased a chamberlain’s place for £6 6s. 8d. In September 1770 he was elected Senior Bailiff.
Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 11 May 1763 reports on George Tonge’s marriage to the eldest daughter of Mr Madge of Chilton, Buckinghamshire. They appear to have lived at Chilton, and his wife died there on 6 June 1781 after a long illness.
In December 1781 Tonge was elected one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants, and on 1 October 1781 he started his first term as Mayor, naming William Wright as his Chamberlain. During his term of office, on 10 June 1782, he married his second wife, Ann, the widow of Oxford grocer Richard Madge, at Chilton, where he still lived. Henceforth the fisherman’s son is known as George Tonge, Esq. He rode the franchises on 9 September 1782.
Jackson’s Oxford Journal announced that on 2 October 1782 there would be a sale of the furniture and stock of the late Richard Tonge (fishing tackle maker and cutler) at his home near All Saints, and that the goldsmith George Tonge would deal with his accounts and carry on the fishing tackle business. Richard was probably Tonge’s uncle.
Tonge continued to be one of the Mayor’s Assistants after his term of office, and on 17 March 1783 he was elected an Alderman. In September 1784 he was elected one of the Barge Commissioners, and around this time he was also Superintendent of the House of Industry.
Tonge began his second term as Mayor on 30 September 1795, choosing Simon Brown as his Chamberlain and Prince Tubb as his Child.
Tonge retired to North Hinksey (then in Berkshire) and died there at the age of 72 on 27 August 1802. His death notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 28 August 1802 read:
Yesterday morning died, in the 73d year of his age, George Tonge, Esq. Senior Alderman and Father of this City.
Tonge was buried at St Lawrence Church on 3 September 1802. His wife Ann died at the age of 82 in 1818.
See also:
- MS Wills Oxon Bd. Appt. of proxy 111.229; 288/1/23; 306/13/6
- C.F.C. Beeson, Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (Oxford: Museum of the History of Science, 1989), p. 145
- Ann Natalie Hansen, Oxford Goldsmiths before 1800 (At the Sign of the Cock, 1996), pp. 89–95
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entries numbered 1901, 2255, 2332, 2492
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 20 March 1819: Announcement of death of Tonge’s widow