BAXTER, Robert

The Baxter family was established in Newcastle-upon-Tyne by the early fifteenth century. Nicholas Baxter was mentioned in the will of Roger Thornton†, a three-times mayor of the town, in 1428, and in the next generation two Baxters, Robert and John (not to be confused with his namesake, a prominent Boston wool merchant, who held customs office in Newcastle), were very active in the town’s affairs, with Robert as the most important. He first appears in the records in May 1440 when John Worcester appeared before the commissioners of gaol delivery accused of stealing two pieces of woollen cloth from him.3 Reg. Langley, iii. (Surtees Soc. clxix), 835.; JUST3/54/21. Later, between 1448 and 1452, he was intensively active in the town’s administration, representing it in the Parliament of November 1449 between terms as sheriff and mayor. This activity was underpinned by his varied mercantile activities. In April 1449 he was among those Newcastle merchants who lost their cargoes of wool when Le Mariknight of Dordrecht was captured by pirates from Dieppe.4 Welford, i. 322-3; E159/227, brevia Hil. rot. 27. In 1454-5 he exported wool, a large quantity of iron (4,000 lb.) and lead from the port, while further shipments of wool and lead followed later that decade and in the 1460s.5 Newcastle-upon-Tyne Customs Accts. 1454-1500 (Surtees soc. ccii), 18, 26, 28, 29, 32, 35, 41-43, 47, 50, 52, 54, 59, 73, 74, 82, 95, 96. He also traded in wine. According to a petition presented to the chancellor by three other Newcastle merchants, in 1466 he had undertaken to remain at Bruges as surety that the French sellers would be paid for a large quantity of wine that he and they had purchased in Bordeaux. Instead, however, he had returned home before all the money had been paid, and then, relying on the favour of the mayor, William Blaxton†, another of the purchasers, he had sued the three merchants in the borough court as though it were they who had defaulted.6 C1/45/151.

The date of Baxter’s death is not known. He and his putative brother, John, were both present in April 1467 to attest the parliamentary election, and he was clearly still alive during Blaxton’s mayoralty of 1467-8, but it is likely that he died soon afterwards. The namesake who attested the parliamentary election in 1478 was probably his son or nephew.7 C219/17/1, 3. It was no doubt this younger Robert who, as executor of John Baxter, was in dispute with the tanners’ company of Newcastle in the late 1470s when he attempted to continue John’s business as a tanner. He frequently exported wool and other goods from Newcastle from the 1480s and was still alive in 1514 when he was admitted to the confraternity of Durham priory.8 C1/66/403; Newcastle-upon-Tyne Customs Accts. 159, 166, 169, 173-4, 185-7, 193, 200, 206, 209, 211, 213, 223, 226, 229, 235, 246, 248-50, 259, 261, 280; Durham Univ. Lib., cathedral muns., priory reg. v. f. 152v.