John Treacher I
Mayor of Oxford 1741/2, 1754/5, and 1763
John Treacher (1718–1780) was an Oxford brewer from a prominent Baptist family.
Treacher was appointed a Cloth Searcher in 1730, and on 2 April 1731 was chosen as Mayor’s Child by Henry Wise, taking up his automatic place as Chamberlain but paying 3s. 4d. for not being Constable. On 30 September 1734 he was chosen as a Keykeeper, and on 15 September 1735 was elected Senior Bailiff for one year.
John Treacher and his wife Mary had their children baptised at the City Church of St Martin’s at Carfax, which was prudent for someone with council ambitions, as although dissenters were not forbidden from sitting on the council at this period, they never attained high office. Their children were as follows:
- Deborah Treacher (privately baptised on 24 February 1735/6, buried at St Martin’s Church on 14 October 1737)
- Mary Treacher (privately baptised on 2 March 1736/7, buried at St Martin’s Church on 1 May 1737)
- Elizabeth Treacher (privately baptised on 4 August 1739, admitted to St Martin’s Church on 4 August 1739, buried there on 10 March 1739/40)
- Thomas Treacher (privately baptised on 9 January 1743/4, admitted tot St Martin’s Church on 2 February 1743/4)
- Susannah Treacher (infant buried at St Martin’s Church on 8 August 1746).
The Mr Richard Treacher buried at St Martin’s on 17 December 1734 and the Deborah Treacher buried there on 22 December 1751 may have been John Treacher’s parents.
On 12 February 1740 Treacher was made one of the Mayor’s Assistants, and on 30 September 1741 he was elected Mayor for the first time (for 1741/2), choosing William Clutterbuck as his Child and Anthony Weston as his Chamberlain.
Treacher went back to being one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants, and by 1745 he was also the City Treasurer. On 19 November 1750 he was sworn in as one of the four Aldermen, paying the macebearer “a Jacobus piece of gold, and also £10 and £10 for entertainment”.
The Council’s audited accounts of December 1751 include the following item under Franchises: ”Paid Mr. Ald. Treacher and Mr. Tawney for Beer: £4–16-0”. When the new Town Hall was built in 1752, vaults were built under the south end for Messrs Treacher, Tawney, and Ives. In addition on 2 April 1756 Treacher was granted a least of 40 years from the following Michaelmas of “a room and cellar now occupied by William Taylor at the north end of the Hall and a new room in the Hall Yard (provided no other person be permitted to sell ale in the Town Hall Yard) for the fine of £150 and the yearly rent of four shillings, a couple of capons, and the usual covenants”. On 1 December 1757, “The lease granted to Mr. Ald. Treacher of new rooms under the north end of the town hall and other premises there is to be sealed with a licence of alienation for 15 years”, and on 13 July 1767 he was granted a new lease of his vault under the Town Hall for a term of 40 years for a fine of £3. On 8 May 1769 Mr. Ald. Treacher was given a new lease of “all his tenements in Saint Nicholas, alias St. Thomas’ parish”, for 40 years for a fine of £20. On 24 January 1774, “A pump was to be erected in the Town Hall Yard, Mr. Treacher allowing six guineas, the town clerk three guineas, the tenants of the other vaults half a guinea each, and the rest is to be paid by the City.”
On 25 March 1754 Treacher took on as an apprentice another John Treacher, the son of Thomas Treacher, gentleman of Pyrton (deceased) and almost certainly a relative.
On 1 October 1754 Alderman Treacher was elected Mayor a second time (for 1754/5), naming Nicholas Pinnell as his Chamberlain. At the end of 1756 he was elected to a committee of seven people, headed by the Mayor, to undertake the selling, letting, and repair of the City estates. On 2 November 1759 he was elected one of the Commissioners of Sewers, and by 1767 he was one of the City’s Justices of the Peace, and also became a Barge Commissioner.
Treacher’s only son, Thomas, was matriculated at The Queen’s College, Oxford on 4 April 1759 at the age of 15.
On 18 January 1763 the Mayor, William Ives, died, and Alderman Treacher took over as mayor for the rest of the year (January–September 1763).
In 1766 the City got into such debt that they tried to sell its two parliamentary seats. As a result, the Mayor and ten councillors (including Alderman Treacher) were committed to Newgate Prison in London for four days: they were discharged with a reprimand from the Speaker of the House of Commons on 10 February 1768.
In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. Alderman Treacher then had the occupation of a house, yard and malthouse on the west side of the road leading from the City Bridge to Fisher Row with a frontage of 42 yards, 0 ft. and 8 in, plus another 4 yards, 0 ft. and 9 in. of frontage listed as “Alderman Treacher; way leading to his house”. He also had a “rickyard &c.” in Church Street, St Ebbe’s with a frontage of 58 yards, 0 ft. and 0 in.
On 30 September 1778 Treacher’s wife Mary died, and was buried at St Martin’s Church on 7 October 1778.
In September 1779 Treacher was elected Mayor a fourth time, but declined to serve and paid a £50 fine.
Treacher died at the age of 75 on 22 March 1780 (reputedly worth £40,000). He was buried in St Martin’s Church at Carfax on 29 March 1780. When that church was demolished in 1896, his bones were transferred with the rest to an unknown communal grave in Holywell Cemetery. A stone in the old church read:
J. Treacher, ob. March 2, 1780.
M. Treacher, ob. Sept. 30 1778.
The Rev. Thos. Treacher ob. Aug. 11 1786
Treacher’s surviving son
Thomas Treacher junior (born 1742/3) became a demy and later a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He was also Rector of Croughton in Northamptonshire from 1779 to 1782.
When his father died on 22 March 1780 it appears that he inherited the brewing business together with his father’s former apprentice, John Treacher II.
The Revd Treacher renewed the lease of the arched cellar or vault under the east part of the Town Hall in 1781, and of the new rooms under the north end of the Guildhall in January 1785.
Treacher and his wife Mary had four children:
- Susannah Martha Treacher (privately baptised at Begbroke on 7 February 1782)
- George Treacher (privately baptised at Begbroke on 21 February 1783
- Lucy Treacher, baptised at Begbroke in 1784)
- Ann Treacher (baptised at Begbroke on 27 November 1785)
The Revd Treacher died at Begbroke on 11 August 1786.
His daughters Mary and Lucy were both buried at St Martin’s Church on 27 March 1789 (presumably either Susannah or Ann was known as Mary). A memorial stone in St Martin’s Church (unfortunately with the top broken off) read “Daughters of the Rev. Thomas Treacher and Mary his wife”.
In April 1798 the lease of all Treacher’s rooms under the Town Hall was granted to William Hall, with a note that this lease was never to be renewed again.
See also:
- John Treacher II (Mayor 1784), his apprentice and probably a relation
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entry numbered 2092
- PCC Will PROB 11/1064 (Will of John Treacher, Alderman of the city of Oxford, proved 15 April 1780)