Many thanks for your researches, Gobbitt and Emeltom !
You are certainly turning up interesting stuff - I still have a lot to learn obviously - and that's why I'm here, of course....
Well, that certainly sounds like the Hezekiah Oakley I have, at 10 Cradle Court, St. Giles in 1851, eldest children shown Thomas and Ann, as per the Will you mention .... BUT - Freedom of the City of London? I don't know very much about that, but I thought it was a special (and at one time expensive) privilege of the merchant and professional classes, and outstanding members of those, too (- privileges also including daft things, like a silk rope if they hung you, and the right to drive sheep over London bridge??!).
If so, it certainly doesn't look like the sort of thing that Hezekiah might have been expected to be involved in, he a "Brewer's Servant" in the Census (ie persumably a labourer in a brewery, or maybe barman?). Or have I got the Freeman thing wrong?
Hezekiah Oakley's wife was Ann Looker - just possibly originally from the French "Lucas", and possibly originally Huguenot, so possibly from a silk weaving family ( a lot of Possiblies ! )- is that significant in this? That occupation is not mentioned in the Oakleys I have found though....
Thanks for the Will link too, I'll follow that up - it looks like him - but again, wouldn't it be unusual for a poor labourer to leave a Will, and with "Effects under £450" - pretty impressive for 1865 ? How did he manage that? We'll see...
More puzzles - that's why we do this stuff though!
Many thanks to both. If you find any more or have comments, I'd be very grateful.
Potterer