Thanks to correspondents I now have a reasonably accurate picture of the circumstances surrounding William Oxlade's latter years and his death.
There remains that gap between his printing books up to 1780 and then his incarceration.
In addition, his son, John's, activities are elevated. He was born in 1770 and died in Greenwich in 1850. He received his articles of clerkship and was given the freedom of the city of London 'by patrimony' (I'm aware that is a scant summary); but quite whether he did practice as an attorney or worked as a bookseller is not yet clear.
It is known, as I wrote before, that he was imprisoned as a member of the London Corresponding Society between 1798 and 1800. He had married a Sarah Sheldrick in 1794 and there were three children of the marriage. The family certainly endured tough times - and, sadly, John Oxlade's wife, Sarah, and two of their children, another Sarah and Eliabeth all died in 1812 when, coincidentally, there was an epidemic of whooping cough...There may well have been a connection.
It could be that this misfortune prompted Oxlade to up sticks and move to Portsea, Hampshire. There in 1813, he married a Mary Ann Terry and the family lived in Portsea until 1820 when they then moved back to the London area (actually Mitcham).
The period in Portsea coincided with a rise in work prospects during the Napoleonic wars until, after Napoleon's fall, trade fell off rapidly. As it happens, the family of Brian Blessed, the actor, followed a very similar line of progression to that of John Oxlade - London, Portsmouth, London.
In Portsea, Oxlade worked as a bookseller. But he also issued broadside ballads and these ballads carry the name 'W. Oxlade'. It would seem that JO was carrying on his father's business: but JO's own name is nowhere on the ballads. I can't 'explain' this discrepancy.
Any views?
roly