John Treacher I
Mayor of Oxford 1741/2, 1754/5, and 1763
John Treacher (1718–1780) was an Oxford brewer. Although originally from a prominent Baptist family, he supported his local parish church (which also happened to be the city church) of St Martin’s at Carfax. This 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.
Treacher’s first contact with the Council was in 1730, when he was appointed a Cloth Searcher. 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 became a Keykeeper, and on 15 September 1735 was elected Senior Bailiff for one year.
John Treacher and his wife had three daughters baptised at St Martin’s in 1735, 1736, and 1739, but they all appear to have died as infants. Their only son, Thomas, was baptised on 9 January 1743 and matriculated at The Queen’s College, Oxford on 4 April 1759 at the age of 15: he subsequently became a demy and later a fellow of Magdalen College. (He was also Rector of Croughton in Northamptonshire from 1779 to 1782, and died at Begbroke in 1786.)
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, 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."
Having no sons to follow him in his trade, 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, 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.
On 18 January 1763 the Mayor, William Ives, died, and Alderman Treacher took over the job until 30 September that year.
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.
On 30 September 1778 his wife died. A year later he was elected Mayor a fourth time, but declined to serve and paid a £50 fine. He died at the age of 75 on 22 March 1780, and was buried in St Martin’s Church at Carfax, the City Church. When St Martin's church was demolished in 1896, his bones were transferred with the rest to an unknown communal grave in Holywell Cemetery.
His son, the Revd Thomas 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. In April 1798 the lease of all Treacher’s rooms under the Town Hall was granted to Willliam 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)