OLDFIELD, William (1623-64), of Elsham, Lincs.

Oldfield, who had followed his father to the puritan stronghold of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, was still under age when the latter died in the late spring of 1643 while away on parliamentary business in Hull.19Al. Cant.; CJ iv. 432a. Under the terms of Sir Samuel’s will of 1636, his widow Dame Katherine had possession for life of all his substantial estate, and although she eventually passed family property in Lincolnshire, London and elsewhere to William, she may have retained control, especially in Surrey, for some time after he attained his majority.20PROB11/192/365; PROB11/315/229. On 20 August 1645 Dame Katherine, who was living with her children in Covent Garden, was assessed at £400, while her eldest son, by this time aged 22, was assessed at only £300.21CCAM 587.

Following the belated issue on 3 September 1645 of a writ for a by-election to replace Sir Samuel at Gatton, Oldfield (who departed from his father’s practice and adopted the spelling of his kinsmen the Oldfields of Dorrington and Spalding, Lincolnshire) was returned on the family interest.22CJ iv. 262b. The result had been declared by 19 September.23Perfect Passages no. 48 (17-23 Sept. 1645), 381 (E.302.24). On 13 October he was respited as an MP by the Committee for Advance of Money; his mother was soon discharged in recognition of his father’s position, the substantial contribution he had made to the war effort, and his losses sustained.24CCAM 587. Oldfield subscribed the Covenant along with other Recruiter Members on 29 October.25CJ iv. 326a. However, it took until 6 February 1646 to secure an order discharging him from all financial obligations attendant on his wardship; Surrey neighbour John Goodwyn*, into whose family Oldfield’s sister Thomasine had married, and Lincolnshire neighbour William Ellys* were to bring in the bill, while Sir Samuel’s trustee Edward Thurland* of Reigate may also have assisted.26CJ iv. 432a; PROB11/192/365; PROB11/315/229.

Financial considerations may have been a major factor in Oldfield’s decision to seek election. He rarely appeared in the Commons Journal, his sole committee nominations relating to the Newcastle election (11 Sept. 1646) and to complaints brought to the House (31 Dec.).27CJ iv. 666b; v. 35a. At the call of the House on 9 October 1647 he was noted as absent.28CJ v. 330a. However, it may be that he was kept busy by obligations in local administration in the two separate spheres of Lincolnshire and Surrey, and equally that he may have been more committed than meets the eye.29A. and O.; C231/6, p. 81. When in May 1648 Parliament dispatched its Surrey Members to deal with local unrest and potential insurrection, Oldfield was credited by a royalist newspaper with having ‘feasted the country people’ at the Fox inn near his mother’s estate at Chipstead and thereby ‘dissuaded them from petitioning’, effectively neutralizing a Reigate vintner ‘and others who had formerly been very forward therein’.30Mercurius Elencticus no. 26 (17-24 May 1648), 101 (E.443.45).

In February 1648 Oldfield was appointed an elder in the Reigate classis.31Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 434. While this does not of itself indicate allegiance to Presbyterianism, there is evidence that the family shared pious Calvinism. Dame Katherine’s will of 1663 committed her soul to God and to ‘Jesus Christ the mediator of the new covenant to live forever with the spirits of just men made perfect’, while James Abdy, vicar of Elsham, where Oldfield was patron, was an active preacher, ejected a few months earlier.32PROB11/315/229; PROB11/315/444; Calamy Revised, 1. Meanwhile, probably viewed as a political Presbyterian, Oldfield was added to the sequestrations committee for Surrey on 18 October 1648, but he may have ceased attending the Commons by this time.33A. and O. He was secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December, and there is no sign of him in the House thereafter.34A Vindication (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

Nevertheless, Oldfield was named a commissioner of sewers in north Lincolnshire under the commonwealth and again in the later 1650s.35Lincs. RO, Spalding Sewers/449/8-12; C181/7, pp. 77, 241, 261, 280. Especially given his links to the Goodwins, who had Irish interests, he may have been the William Oldfield who in 1654 obtained land in the barony of Tinnahich in Queen’s County.36CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 527; CSP Ire. Adv. p. 348. Belatedly, in November 1655 he married, consolidating links with the London mercantile community, but within a few years his wife died, leaving two small sons.37Reg. of St Dionis Backchurch (Harl. Soc. Reg. iii), 31; PROB11/315/444.

Oldfield appears not to have sought a seat in 1650s Parliaments – even at Gatton, represented only in 1659. He did return in 1660 with other Members of the Long Parliament, in which he was recorded as sitting as its dissolution, but he made no appearance in the Journal.38W. Prynne, A Full Declaration (1660, E.1013.22). He stood for Gatton in April, but the election was declared void by the Convention after a double return. Successful in 1661, he received more nominations to committees than previously.39HP Commons 1660-1690. On 8 October 1664 he was ailing as he added a codicil to his will, and within hours he was dead, for he was buried the next day, a few weeks before his mother, Lady Katherine. He had yet to receive the £2,000 portion due with his second wife, whom he had married in 1662. Neither of his sons lived to adulthood and his interest at Gatton passed to his first wife’s brother, Sir John Thompson†.40St Katherine Cree par. reg.; PROB11/315/229 (Katherine Owfeild); PROB11/315/444.