john oxlade

[roly]

This relates to earlier enquiries that now have yielded a life history for John Oxlade.  However, I can't locate his narrative (1837) describing his imprisonment as a result of his connections with the London Corresponding Society (c. 1798 - 1800).

I have seen it online; but have no reference.  I've tried the Oxlade Family History Group webpage without luck; and have tried several times to contact Susan Rogers who has done such sterling work on the Oxlade family sagas.  No luck there either.

Can anyone point me back in the direction of the narrative?

roly

[Bookbox]

I have seen it online; but have no reference.

It's in the British Library, in Add. MS 27809. See the catalogue extract below.

I can't see the actual text of the Narrative online anywhere.

[roly]

Thank you for the reference; but I certainly did read John Oxlade's Narrative online.  Where is it, I wonder?

roly

[Jennie Hornsby]

Hello Roly,

My mum found some papers kept by my Great Uncle from the Oxlade Family Tree Webpage.  Since she has shown them to me, I am keen to get in contact with other Oxlade members.

I would like to offer information to help expand the Oxlade family tree & learn about my lineage.  If you know of anyone who is currently active in expanding this or still working on the Oxlande Family History, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks

Jennie

[Robert Keiller]

Apologies for coming late to the party, so to speak, but I have been tracking down the forebears of my ancestor Mary Oxlade wife of William Crawford, saw this thread and thought I could contribute.

It seems to me that the Oxlad references belong to a different family - the 1788 marriage of William Oxlad does not match either William Oxlade b 1743 (then married to Eleanor Waller) or  his son William Oxlade b 1768  (William Oxlad was already a widower according to marriage record). Likewise the baptismal records from Mitcham are almost certainly from other branches of the Oxlade family (there are other records for Oxlades in Mitcham dating back 50 years or so). Also, if William Oxlad is unrelated to William Oxlade, bookbinder, then the 1803 burial for William Oxlad is almost certainly not that of William Oxlade, bookbinder. Furthermore, there is no reliable record for the death of his son, William, born 1768 - although there is a burial in Dulwich College for 1769, this is more likely to be William, son of Richard Oxlade, baptised in Dulwich 1768.

So, William Oxlade of Portsea could be either William, b 1743 or his son. It is not necessary to assume that John Oxlade was printing in his father's name. Other than his marriage to Mary Ann Terry in 1813, there may be little to connect John Oxlade to Portsea. One point of interest, though, is that John and Mary Ann were living in Peerless Row when their children, Henry, John Thomas and Sarah Elizabeth, were baptised. Peerless Row was also the address of William and Mary Crawford.

I am, however, a little perplexed by John Oxlade presenting himself as a bachelor at his wedding to Mary Ann. In 1798,  John Oxlade, bookbinder, and his wife Ann, baptised a daughter, Ann, a couple of months before his arrest. So why present as a bachelor ( unless it is a simple mistake)?

[roly]

I'm glad that you did to the pa

[roly]

I'm glad that you did get to the party.  I'd almost given up trying to reconcile all the dates that I'd previously put together.  I would just say that I was guided, initially, by the Oxlade Family Tree, as compiled by Susan Rogers in Australia.  I haven't heard from her for some years now...

Anyway, I'll ponder and respond as soon as I can.  Thank you for your interest.

roly

[Robert Keiller]

Something else that might be of interest and which I haven't seen noted anywhere else.

John Oxlade appears to be referenced in the 1794 trial of Robert Watt in Edinburgh for high treason. This trial followed the arrest of organisers of a Scottish convention, supported by English Corresponding Societies. The charge against the defendants was based on a supposed plot "the pike plot" to arm thousands of supporters with pikes and violently overthrow the government in Scotland. The accused were all found guilty; Robert Watt was executed and the other defendants transported to Botany Bay.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution, John Taylor, a government spy, reported that at a meeting of the LCS he had seen a walking stick designed to be converted into a pike by screwing a dagger to it. Also that an altercation had arisen from a man in the name of Oxlade who was wearing red clothes. Some members objected on the basis that red was a mark of aristocracy. Oxlade said that "he had been in a military line, and held a place in the society ... in the same situation. That the London Corresponding Society was not without places of a military resort".

The same year John Taylor was a key witness in the prosecution of John Thelwall of the LCS. This time his evidence was discredited as unreliable by the defence barristers and John Thelwall was acquitted (along with Thomas Hardy, founder of the LCS, and all other defendants).

When John Oxlade was arrested in 1798, a key point of evidence against him (according to his narrative) was a pike found in his house. He explained that "he had held a commission in the London Militia and had been a member of the Artillery Company". This seems to confirm that John Oxlade was the earlier Oxlade and at least partially corroborates John Taylor's evidence at Robert Watt's trial.

So, how close did John Oxlade come to a treason trial? Could there have been enough evidence to prosecute based on the physical evidence of a pike (and also, according to John Oxlade himself, a musket) and John Taylor's testimony at Robert Watt's trial? Or was John Taylor too discredited by the Thelwall trial to be asked to testify again? Does this perhaps explain why John Oxlade was amongst a group of prisoners treated more harshly than other LCS members arrested the same time?

[roly]

I apologise for a very tardy response...

This note is to extend the evidence for John Oxlade's presence in Portsea after he married Mary Anne Terry in 1813.  There is a  Hampshire Telegraph advertisement in 1813 noting Oxlade's extensive stock.  In 1816 there is a case of the alleged theft of books from John Oxlade - though, in this case, the name of the complainant is given as 'W. Oxlade'.

There is no sign elsewhere in directories of any 'W. Oxlade during the period of John Oxlade's residence in Portsea (ending in 1820) and no sign of any Oxlade thereafter.

Yet John Oxlade's ballad stock was issued under the name of 'W. Oxlade' - which is why I suggested that he may have taken over his father's business.

Printers' ballad stocks at the time tended to follow a pattern - reference to historical events (tho' often retrospectively); sometimes a comment on the times; a similar concern for politics; 'borrowing' from popular stage presentations and from opera; extensive sharing of material with other printers; lyrical compositions of varying hue; and, now and then, specific reference to the locality.

Two ballads in Oxlade's stock exemplify the last-named.  Rime's Alley concerns a well-known as a haunt of certain ladies; and there is a ballad about Portsdown Fair.  Again, ballad-printers often took the theme (in this case of a fair) and set the ballad in their own locality.  No other ballad-printers seem to have referenced Portsdown Fair.

In addition, ballads do mention an 'I Woolfe' as progenitor and performer of ballads and it appears that such a person had a long and successful career...It may be that he was actually a 'J. Woolfe'...

This is scant coverage of a multi-complex industry; but there seems to be no doubt that, aside from his marriage, John Oxlade can be placed in Portsea.

This makes it all the more difficult to be certain about the provenance of his ballad-stock and, what is more, his personal pedigree.
I'm still working on it!

roly