Christopher Yeats
Mayor of Oxford 1792/3 and 1807/8
Christopher Yeats (1740–1810) was an Oxford wine merchant who was awarded his freedom in May 1774. In September that year he was nominated as Mayor’s Child by Samuel Culley and immediately took up his Chamberlain’s place.
Yeats was elected Senior Bailiff in September 1782 and one of the Mayor’s eight Assistants in October 1791. He was elected Mayor for the first time in 1792, choosing Thomas Fox Bricknell as his Child.
In 1798 Yeats was appointed a Barge Commissioner and in March 1800 was made an Alderman, "paying a jacobus piece of gold to the macebearer, and £10 according to custom".
In 1807 Yeats was elected for a second term as Mayor.
Yeats died on 10 April 1810 (at the age of 69 according to his memorial plaque but at the age of 70 according to the entry in the parish register). He was buried inside the church of St Michael-at-the-Northgate on 18 April 1810. His memorial (left) on the wall of St Michael’s Church reads:
Near this Place
rest the remains of
Christopher Yeats Esqr
Alderman, and twice Mayor
of this City.
In Office an upright Magistrate:
Through Life a sincere Friend
And benevolent Man
He died
the 10th day of April 1810,
Aged 69 years
The benevolence of Yeats is demonstrated in his will dated 1807, by which he gave:
- The vast sum of £10,000 to the Radcliffe Infirmary
- The reversion of £1,000 stock, the dividends to be divided annually between three freemen and three widows of freemen over 60, with preference to be given to one freeman and one widow of St Michael’s parish
- The reversion of another £1,000 stock, the income, each time it amounted to £30, to be loaned to a poor freeman for seven years
See also:
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 14 April 1810 (death notice)
- List of legacies on the wall outside the Board Room of the Radcliffe Infirmary
- PCC Will PROB 11/1511 (Will of Christopher Yeats, Alderman of Oxford, proved 2 May 1810)