NEWMAN, William

Recognized as a ‘gentleman’ by his contemporaries and styled as such in a pardon of June 1452,3 Med. Archs. Christ Church (Oxf. Historical Soc. xcii), 8; C67/40, m. 32. Newman may only have settled in Oxford shortly before representing it in Parliament.4 But a namesake, possibly from the same family, resided in the town in the late 14th century: Med. Archs. Univ. Oxf. ii. (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxxiii), 20, 22, 30, 33, 37-38, 59, 91, 94, 112. There is no evidence that the MP was one of the Newmans of Berks., as suggested by HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 630. A tenant of Osney abbey, he acquired a lease of a tenement and two gardens opposite the east gate of Oxford castle from its monks in October 1447. The lease was a long-term arrangement, for the grant was to him and his wife in survivorship, with successive remainders to each of their children for life. For their part, the Newmans undertook to rebuild the front of the tenement with oak timbers.5 Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. 378-9. Elsewhere in Oxford, Newman likewise paid the abbey rent for a couple of houses and several gardens in the parish of St. George.6 Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xci), 244, 269. Although a gentleman, he was not above engaging in trade, and in May 1452 the monks of Osney undertook to construct a brewhouse within the tenement they had leased to him and his family in 1447. In return, he and his wife agreed to supply timber for its floors, doors and windows, and to furnish it with vats, tubs and other necessary utensils, all at their own expense. The couple also agreed to pay a rent of 24s. p.a. for the brewhouse, which they and their children were to hold on the same terms as the tenement within which it was situated.7 Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. 379-80; Med. Archs. Christ Church, 8. It was perhaps in connexion with his activities as a brewer that Newman faced a suit for debt in the later 1450s. The plaintiff John Shirwood (possibly the future bishop of Durham of that name),8 But there was another 15th-century John Shirwood of Oxford who was admitted to New College in 1442: Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1692-3. brought his suit in the court of common pleas, alleging that he was owed £10 16s.9 CP40/792, rot. 81d.

The surviving evidence does not show Newman participating in public affairs before 1449, when he attested the election of the knights of the shire for Oxfordshire to the first Parliament of that year. In the succeeding assembly he and his son-in-law, Oliver Urry*, the husband of his daughter Isabel, sat as the burgesses for Oxford.10 Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. 378-9. No doubt one of the primary concerns for the two men was a petition submitted in the names of the mayor and burgesses of Oxford, by which the townsmen sought an exemption from a statute of 1406 restricting apprenticeships to children of 20s. freeholders. They claimed that the statute had caused members of the university to leave the town for lack of tradesmen to serve them, and that this exodus was hurting Oxford’s economy. After the petition went to the Lords, the King replied that he would consider the matter. This was not the first time that the burgesses had sought such an exemption from the Act of 1406, and it would appear that they were again unsuccessful since they were to submit a similar petition in 1455.11 SC8/28/1388; 132/6599; PROME, x. 415-16; RP, v. 205, 337-8 (cf. PROME, xii. 157, 444); M. Davies, ‘Lobbying Parliament’, in Parchment and People ed. Clark (Parlty. Hist. xxiii), 146. Newman was re-elected to the following Parliament, and then again in 1453 while he was serving as one of the town’s bailiffs. A few months after his term in that office had expired, he and his erstwhile co-bailiff, John Swetlowe, were at odds with Oriel College. Its provost, Henry Sampson, sued them in the university chancellor’s court on 11 Dec. 1453, over an annual rent of £23 5d., a charge that was a long-running controversy between Oriel and the burgesses. During their term as bailiffs, Newman and Swetlowe had failed to pay half of this sum, prompting Sampson to claim that they had ‘robbed’ the college. After Swetlowe appeared in court on the same day to admit the non-payment, the court ordered him and Newman to comply with Sampson’s demand, and by 22 Dec. the two men had paid the outstanding arrears.12 Wood’s Surv. Antiqs. Oxf. ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xvii), 511; Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. xciii), 341-2, 343.

Still alive in 1466,13 Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii. 269. The MP cannot be linked with William Newman of Kirtlington, to whom the prior of Bicester granted a lease of lands in that parish (situated a few miles north of Oxford) in 1475: CAD, i. B1781. Newman may have died soon afterwards. A Walter Newman held property in the parish of St. Peter le Bailey in the late 1470s as a tenant of Osney abbey, but he was probably not one of the MP’s sons since he does not feature in the lease of 1447.14 Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii. 263.