Latest revision as of 23:33, July 10, 2012

New in the wiki

Editorial history

15/08/11, CSG: Created page

Overview

This page provides occasional updates on new secondary content and new features in this wiki

July 2012

Monday, 9th July 2012

• Published call for project volunteers for MarineLives

MarineLives is an innovative academic project for the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts, which were originated in the High Court of Admiralty, London, 1650-1669. The end product will be a publicly and freely available online academic edition.

See MarineLives - Call for Project Volunteers

January 2012

Monday, 2nd January 2012

• Published new page showing scope and size of the Wiki.

The wiki now contains 699 discrete pages of newly transcribed primary records
- 320 pages of private correspondence of Sir George Oxenden
- 6 pages of inventories & related Prerogative Court of Canterbury probate papers
- 125 pages of Chancery law suits
- 238 pages of Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills

The above count excludes current work being undertaken on High Court of Admiralty court records, and excludes republication of out of copyright correspondence of Henry Oxinden of Barham and other Oxenden family members

- Size & scope of the wiki will provide regular updates as further transcribed primary source material is added

• Published enhanced page on Visual and Material culture.

The page provides a finding aid for published texts from the seventeenth and early eighteenth century which contain engraved copper plates and wood cuts of places and people relevant to mid-seventeenth century merchant life.

The emphasis is on texts available electronically without copyright restrictions. Wiki users are encouraged to make additions to this page

- Visual & material culture

December 2011

Friday, 30th December 2011

• Published new front page section on Using and Contributing to this wiki

- Searching the wiki
- Contributing to the wiki
- Testing the wiki

Wednesday, 28th December 2011

• Specified technical, linguistic, and subject expertise needed to expand and deepen this wiki

Monday, 26th December 2011

• Launched a new section on the wiki main page called "Need your help", with pages addressing help needed to identify individuals, to supply missing images, and to supply text on ports, towns, and building

- See Missing faces
- See Missing pictures
- See Missing places

November 2011

Wednesday, 31st November 2011

• Abstract & context of the will of the London based merchant Nathan Wright, together with transcription of the same will

• See Nathan Wright will

October 2011

Sunday, 16th October 2011

• Tobell Aylmer was a successful merchant, as can be judged by the size, furnishing and interior decoration of his London house at the time of his death. Aylmer's business papers and accounts have not survived. However, a number of Chancery records have been located for several different legal actions in which he was involved. All of these actions involved property, and it appears that Aylmer was active in lending to agricultural property owners who were in financial distress. Furthermore, at the time of his death, Aylmer owned a number of London and suburban properties, as can be seen in the Tobell Aylmer will, including a house in Ludgate Hill, a further house where he lived, five small houses in Clarke Raven Alley, Creechurch, the lease of the Chequer in Dowgate, and and lands at Snowhill, Holborn conduit. These were valued at £XXX in his inventory.

The bill of complaint of Edward Clovile, Tobell Aylmer et al C10/5/21 f. 1 (1649) shows Tobell Aylmer in a joint action with Edward Clovyle, the owner of a manor house and land in Essex, pursuing a series of writs and judgements in the court of the Upper Bench^[1] to obtain possession of the above property from a prior lessee of Clovyle. The lessee, Thomas Barker, a gentleman of West Hanningfield, had allegedly fallen into rental arrears, yet had refused to yield possession. The plaintiffs had successfully sought a writ of habere facias possessionem; possession was briefly achieved, only to be lost six weeks later due supposedly to the neglect of Aylmer's attorney to correctly register in due time a favourable court judgement. The defendant was accused then of launching many frivolous and vexatious suits of clausem frigit designed to push up the plaintiffs legal costs, who sought an injunction in the Court of Chancery to halt these suits. A further complication was that Clovyle claimed to have lost the conterpart to his original lease of Barker, rendering a solution impossible under common law. Hence the plaintiffs sought a writ of subpoena in addition to the above mentioned injunction to require Barker to disclose the whereabouts of the lease.

The answer of Thomas Barker to Clovile and Aylmer et al's Bill of Complaint C10/5/21 f. 2 (1649) offers a very different story. The true facts of the case are impossible to ascertain from the documentation, but Barker's detailed answer suggests that at the very least that Clovile and Aylmer were engaged in sharp practice. Barker claimed he had received a writ of elegit obtained by a Thomas Browne in the Court of Common Pleas against Edward Clovile, and after consulting counsel, had attorned to Browne, and had begun lawfully to pay him rent, rather than Ailmer. Browne had achieved this writ as a result of a debt of £400 plus interest and expenses owing to him from Clovile. Following his ejectment by Clovile and Ailmer, Barker claimed that the court of the Upper Bench had reconsidered matters, appointing a Mr. Hoddesdon, secondary to the court, to meet with the parties and to consider the proceedings in the case. Hoddesdon had, it was claimed by Barker, found "the practizes in the businesse for gayninge of the said possession to bee soe undue and Indirect" that the court granted a writ of restitution, and possession was restored to Barker. It was alleged that a "loose idle clerke" had indeed enrolled the judgement, but that he was not admitted to practice nor to come into the office of the Court of Upper Bench, and that he secretly, without a warrant, entered the judgement on an attorney's roll who had not been privy nor had given his consent to the action. Matters escalated, with Baker alleging that he had been unlawfully imprisoned by the plaintiffs and forced under duress to sign a warrant yielding possession, which he subsequently revoked on the advice of his counsel. Baker resorted to an emergency appearance before the Lord Chief Justice of the Upper Bench, Henry Rolle.

A later suit C6/130/5 f. 1 (1654) shows Tobell Aylmer complaining against his former co-litigant Edward Clovyle over the same property. Aylmer had still failed to achieve possession of the manor house and was seeking a writ of elegit to take possession of the lands, to be followed by the issue by a sherrif of a writ of fieri facias.

Friday, 7th October 2011

• Profile of Tobell Aylmer, citizen of London and draper. A cousin and friend of Elizabeth Dallison, he may well have been with George Oxenden in Surat in the late 1650s. He kept a house in Ludgate Hill, on the corner of Old Bailey, visited by a number of the Oxenden and Dallison social group

Tuesday, 4th October 2011

• Profile of Edward Kelke (junior), of Gray's Inn, a friend and contemporary of Sir George Oxenden, who chose Elizabeth Dallison as his sole executrix. He was lodging at the Ludgate Hill house of Tobell Aylmer when he fell sick and made his final will and testament. Other lodgers in the house at the time of his death included Tobell's daughter, Margaret Grigg, and Elizabeth Dallison and her maid servant, Sarah Waynman

Saturday, 1st October 2011

• Profile of the Dover born Gray's Inn lawyer Robert Raworth, who served the Dallison and Oxenden family in legal matters for more than forty years. Whilst studying law he may have been a clerk to the Tenterden, Kent born lawyer, friend of the Eveleyn family of Wotton, and subsequently serjeant-at-law, Sir Ralph Whitfield, who was his brother-in-law. Later a barrister and ancient of Gray's Inn, he had a wide client list amongst gentry, aristocracy and merchants

September 2011

Tuesday, 27th September 2011

• Images of Canterbury from William Somner, 2nd ed. (1703), William Gostling (1777), and Edward Hasted (1801). Canterbury was an ecclesiastical and legal centre in the mid-seventeenth century. It lay within a half day's ride of the Oxenden homes in Deane and Barham.

Monday, 26th September 2011

• Profile of Hardres Court, home of Sir Richard Hardres, cousin of Sir George Oxenden, Elizabeth Dallison and James Master. Sir Richard Hardres' son was in Surat with Sir George Oxenden in the early 1660s. The son's passage out to Surat was problematic, missing Sir George Oxenden's ship and requiring the assistance of Elizabeth Dallison and others to procure him a berth on a subsequent ship

Wednesday, 21st September 2011

• Updated Research questions page with new questions on land and leases

Tuesday, 20th September 2011

• New main page tab for Academic contacts and Field visits

• Field visit report to Kent parishes of Seale and Halling to follow

Tuesday, 13th September 2011

• Profile of Denton Court, home of Sir Anthony Percivall, friend of Henry Oxinden of Barham, who was imprisoned with Sir Thomas Peyton in 1643 in London. Denton Court lay close to Henry Oxinden home of Maydekin and Sir Basil Dixwell's home at Broome

Monday, 12th September 2011

• Reproductions of Badeslade's birds-eye views of Deane and Broome Park added to profiles of Deane and Broome Park

• New profile and engraving of Acrise, home of Thomas Papillon, Sir George Oxenden's commercial colleague and friend to Sir George and his sister Elizabeth Dallison

• New profile and engravings of Wingham Mansion or Wingham Court, a mile north of Deane, where Sir Thomas and Lady Palmer frequently entertained the Oxenden family

• Correspondence (1607-1642) of Sir James Oxenden, Lady Margaret Oxenden, Elizabeth Dallison, Sir Henry Oxenden of Deane, in Primary Documents section of wiki

Thursday, 8th September 2011

• Profile of Sir Maximilian Dallison of Halling, Kent. Sir Maximilian was the father of William Dallison, Elizabeth Oxenden's husband. He had a house in St. John Street, Clerkenwell as well as a house (Bishop's palace) and estate in Halling, near Rochester

Wednesday, 7th September 2011

• Profile of Theobald family of Stonepitt and Seale, Kent. Sir George Theobald was a cousin of Margaret Oxenden, Sir George Oxenden's and Elizabeth Dallison's mother, and helped Sir James Oxenden, Elizabeth's father, when William Dallison, Elizabeth's husband, experienced financial difficulties in the late 1630s

Tuesday, 6th September 2011

• Map of the hundreds of Wingham and Kinghamford added to page on Deane, showing location of Deane house and of Broome Park

• Updated profile of Sir Edmund (Edmond) Hoskins, including review of extensive Hoskins family papers at the Surrey History Centre concerning his father, grandfather, and elder brother. Mainly estate related but include an inventory and administration accounts for his father, Sir Thomas Hoskins

• New work on primary documents page accessible from wiki front page

• House in St. John Street, Clerkenwell. Background on Dallison family links to Clerkenwell and house in St. John Street. Characterisation of Clerkenwell in 1563, 1619, and 1677. Proposed further research to better characterise the changing nature of Clerkenwell and its attractiveness to gentry and possibly to lawyers in 1620s and 1630s.

Monday, 5th September 2011

• Profile of Sir Edmund (Edmond) Hoskins, serjeant-at-law, friend of Elizabeth Dallison and provider of legal counsel to her and Sir George Oxenden

• Profile of Francis Coventry, barrister and acquaintance of Elizabeth Dallison, who married Elizabeth's friend and merchant's daughter, Elizabeth Hoskins, following the death of her husband Sir Edmund Hoskins. Son of Sir Thomas Coventry (b.1578,d.1640), the prominent Inner Temple lawyer and Lord Keeper of the Seale , his brothers Henry and William Coventry played prominent diplomatic and political roles in the 1670s

Friday, 2nd September

• Building history and character of the mansion house of Deane, the home of Sir Henry Oxenden, and birthplace of Elizabeth Dalyson and Sir George Oxenden

August 2011

Friday, 26th August 2011

• Inventory of William Dallison of Hallinge, Kent, 1583/84 showing his thirty-five volume law library

Monday 15th August 2011

• Wiki launched

1. ↑ The court of the King's Bench was renamed the court of the Upper Bench following the execution of Charles I in 1649