OLIVER, William I

Oliver was a kinsman, perhaps nephew, of the wealthy Bridport merchant William Mountfort*, whose property he inherited and to whom he referred in his will as ‘my master’. He appeared in 1433 with his father as a feoffee of Mountfort’s land in Southtown Dartmouth in Devon, of which they were confirmed in possession two years later by Sir Humphrey Stafford*, Sir William Bonville* and others. Further transactions established William Oliver as Mountfort’s principal heir, not only to this estate, but also to his considerable holdings in Dorset. These, although concentrated on Bridport, also included several properties situated on the coast at Weymouth, Melcombe, Smallmouth and Wyke,7 Bridport register, f. 284; CAD, i. C1093; vi. C4370, 5592. all of which fell to him after the deaths of Mountfort (in 1437) and his widow, Alice. Together with the widowed Alice, he and his father were sued in 1441 by John Brushford* for causing significant damage to his house in Dartmouth by neglecting to repair a gutter.8 CP40/720, rot. 161. As her co-executor of Mountfort’s will, Oliver joined Alice in bringing suits in the common pleas to recover substantial debts owed to the deceased.9 CP40/723, rot. 458; 728, rot. 393d.

To his Mountfort inheritance Oliver added yet more property in Bridport, for instance acquiring a tenement in West Street from the widow and son of Philip Brice† in 1440. Five years later the cofferers and wardens of lands belonging to the town demised to him, his wife and their son John for term of their lives a house in ‘Kyllyngeslane’, and at the same time he purchased land there known as ‘Mortehay’. To these holdings he subsequently added more buildings in East Street and West Street.10 CAD, i. C72, 146, 308, 422, 434, 459, 708; ii. C2856; vi. C5786. Elsewhere in Dorset Oliver and his wife held land in Stalbridge, which in 1462 they relinquished to Sherborne abbey in return for a yearly pension of 13s. 4d.11 CAD, iii. C3141.

While his inheritance from Mountfort is well documented, there is no evidence to date precisely when William came into his patrimony in Devon, although it is clear from the claims later made by his daughters that he was the main heir to Thomas Oliver’s property. Even so, it was in Bridport that he made his career, initially as an apprentice to Mountfort, who had prospered through supplying the King’s ships with cordage. A few surviving bonds, given to Oliver by men of Bridport and Somerset, a merchant of St. Germans, Cornwall, and the widow of Robert Wenyngton* of Dartmouth, provide only a hint of the extent of his trading activities.12 CAD, i. C55, 1081, 1116, 1151; ii. C2272; C146/10704, 10747. Oliver took an unrivalled position of authority in the affairs of his adopted town, where after an initial term as cofferer he served as bailiff for no fewer than 18 annual terms between 1437 and his death nearly 40 years later. It is worthy of note that from 1450 until he died he occupied the bailiff-ship every alternate year without exception, standing out as the most important inhabitant of Bridport of his time. Oliver was elected as one of Bridport’s representatives in the Parliament of 1442, which assembled during his third term of office. It was an experience which he did not, apparently, choose to repeat, even though he was prepared to do the town’s business in London on other occasions.13 Bridport ‘Red Bk.’, f. 14. Given his readiness to serve as a bailiff and his willing participation in the process of election of the town officers,14 Bridport ‘Domesday Bk.’, ff. 127, 131, 141 (standing surety for the newly-elected cofferers). it is surprising that he never sat in the Commons again. However, he did stand surety for Bridport’s MPs at the elections to the Parliaments of 1449 (Nov.) and 1467.15 C219/15/7; 17/1. Oliver’s other public service included being pricked as a juror at important sessions of oyer and terminer held at Dorchester in May 1462, and presenting evidence at the inquisitions post mortem held in Bridport in October 1474 on Stephen Preston and John Worsop*.16 KB9/21/18; C140/49/30; 50/34. Sometimes he acted as a feoffee for his neighbours, although one of them, William Boweley*, complained to the chancellor that Oliver had refused to return a number of messuages in Bridport with which he had been entrusted.17 CAD, i. C544; C1/40/298.

Oliver’s private transactions reveal that, like his father, who had once asked the duke of Bedford to be a trustee of his land, he too established contacts with magnates, albeit these relations were not necessarily amicable. In 1439, not long after he inherited the landed possessions of William Mountfort, his title to a messuage and land in Wyke Regis and a moiety of the ferry of Smallmouth was challenged by one of the most powerful landowners in the region, Richard, duke of York. On 6 June that year he and two friends were bound in £40 to abide by the award of four of the duke’s legal counsel. The outcome is not clear, but a later deed (now damaged) shows that in the mid 1440s he placed the same disputed properties in the hands of none other than William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk, Ralph, Lord Sudeley, then treasurer of England, and other feoffees including Sir James Butler, afterwards earl of Wiltshire. There seems little doubt that he was seeking their protection against the claims of the duke.18 C146/5614, 10644. He was drawn into Butler’s quarrel with his wife’s uncle William Stafford*, which led to violent clashes at Toller Porcorum and elsewhere in 1444, and was among those with Butler whom Agnes, widow of Robert Fayrechild appealed in the King’s bench for killing her husband. They eventually produced in court pardons dated 11 May 1446 (the same day that Stafford and his followers were pardoned).19 KB27/738, rots. 25-26; CPR, 1441-6, p. 438.Among those to whom Oliver granted his goods and chattels in 1463 were Roger Keys, a canon of Exeter cathedral, the sometime shire knights William Carent*, John Newburgh II (the recorder of Bridport), William Huddesfield† and John Byconnell*, and the parliamentary burgesses William Montagu* and John Bettiscombe*.20 CAD, vi. C4383. With the last, Bettiscombe, who was retained by Bridport as legal counsel, he had other personal dealings. Two years later he and his son John, who had entered the Church, purchased from Bettiscombe a reversionary interest in lands in Woodmill in Marshwood Vale, to vest after the deaths of Bettiscombe and his wife Christine. Later, after both Bettiscombe and John Oliver had died, Christine gave up her interest to the MP in return for an annuity of 26s. 8d.21 CAD, vi. C6015, 6356. Bettiscombe, who regarded Oliver as an ‘honest man’ and his ‘special and faithful friend’, named him as heir to some of his property in Bridport should his issue fail, and asked him to advise his executors: C146/8166, 9540. Oliver left no other sons, although he did have daughters: in 1474 the treasurers of the borough of Bridport granted him and his second wife Joan and their children Alice and Elizabeth a cottage in ‘Kyllyngeslane’ for their lives, this being probably the same property as had been settled on the MP nearly 30 years earlier.22 CAD, ii. C1956.

In the last year of his life Oliver was in receipt of an annual fee of 20s. for his services as receiver of John Newburgh’s manor of Bradpole, so he evidently remained busy to the end. Throughout his career he had been actively involved in the affairs of the various fraternities in St. Mary’s church in Bridport, of which he and his wife were members, and he frequently provided pledges for newly-appointed wardens.23 Bridport fraternities, CD22, 50, 56. Edward Pernam (d.1459/60) enfeoffed him of property to provide for religious services in the church: Bridport wills, DC/BTB/Y11. He took responsibility in the late 1450s for raising money from the fraternities towards the purchase of an antiphonary for the church.24 Bridport fraternities, CD6. Not surprisingly, in the will he made on 5 May 1475 he asked to be buried in the graveyard there, next to his first wife and with his head at the feet of the entombed William Mountfort. His widow was to keep for life all the property he had inherited from Mountfort, which after her death was to pass in tail to their as yet unmarried daughters Alice, Elizabeth and Elizabeth the younger. Joan was also to keep his land in Dartmouth for life, provided that she supported a chaplain to pray for his soul and that of his former master. Although she was the sole executor, she could call on the overseers, John Newburgh II and William Huddesfield, to assist her. The will was proved on 5 July 1476,25 PCC 23 Wattys. but Oliver had died at least five months earlier, for a writ de diem clausit extremum had been issued on 25 Jan. As this writ was not acted upon, in November following fresh orders were made for the escheator to hold inquiries as to his landed possessions, and to take them into the King’s hands.26 CFR, xxi. 202, 332; CCR, 1476-85, no. 14. No inquests survive.

Oliver’s daughters had trouble obtaining the land which their father had purchased from John Bettiscombe, since, as a suit in Chancery in 1482 showed, the aged Bettiscombe had enfeoffed his son Robert in the property to hold to the use of Oliver and his heirs and to complete the sale, but Robert refused to relinquish possession. In reaching a decision favourable to the women the chancellor relied on testimony provided by Richard Pylle, Oliver’s servant of over 40 years’ standing, who understood that a marriage had been proposed between Bettiscombe’s son John and one of them. Further testimony was added by Richard Bulle, a merchant from Winchester who by that date had married Oliver’s widow. Bulle said she had told him that Oliver had paid £32 for the disputed land, as well as giving Christine Bettiscombe her annuity; and it was also reported that Oliver had paid £20 to the abbot of Cerne to whom Bettiscombe had mortgaged the property.27 C1/61/326. One of the two daughters named Elizabeth died unwed, but her sister and namesake married in succession two aldermen of London, John West and Thomas Exmewe;28 CAD, ii. C2786. while the other surviving daughter, Alice, married into the Hill family. Suits brought in the 1530s and 1540s by Alice’s grand-daughter Elizabeth, wife of Robert Sebyn, with regard to wastes on her inheritance, give an idea of the extent of William Oliver’s estate, for it was said to be comprised of 23 messuages, 13 cottages, some 1,100 acres of land and a sizeable rental income.29 C1/890/28-31, 1070/17.