WALFORD, Robert

A saddler who branched out into the wine trade, Walford resided in the Oxford parish of St. Michael at the North gate. Between the late 1420s and mid 1430s, he was one of its churchwardens, Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 392, f. 26; Oxon. RO, PAR211/4/F1/9, 11, 14. and in 1436 the parishioners spent 8s. on making seats, including the ‘sege wycke Robert Sadler and Mylton syttyn ynne’, by the north door of their church. Oxon. RO, PAR211/4/F1/18. Most of his property lay in the parish, where he held a tenement, cottage and shops, although he also possessed holdings in the High Street and the parish of St. Martin. Surv. Oxf. i (Oxf. Historical Soc. n.s. xiv), 102; Surv. Oxf. ii. 164; Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/2-3; Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 399, f. 57. His principal landlord was the abbot of Osney, to whom he paid an annual rent of over £5 for the tenement in St. Michael’s alone. Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xci), 236, 238, 241, 247, 261.

Having served as a juror in one of the town’s courts in the spring of 1428, Oxf. City Docs. (Oxf. Historical Soc. xviii), 180-1. Walford began his career as an office-holder in the following year, as one of the chamberlains of Oxford, a position in which he served alongside Thomas Wythigg*. Their term coincided with a dispute over market dues between the corporation of Oxford and Thomas Chace, chancellor of Oxford university, a quarrel that loomed large in their account. The account shows that they collected an aid of £12 6s. 8d. from their fellow burgesses in aid of the town’s legal costs against the university, although this was insufficient to cover the expenses, which amounted to £21 17s. 7d. It also records that Walford rode to London in pursuit of this quarrel on several occasions in this period, spending up to 12 days away from Oxford at any one time. Munimenta Civitatis Oxonie, 284-6. Having served as a chamberlain, Walford was twice bailiff of Oxford, became an alderman and was mayor for two consecutive terms. Shortly after his initial election as mayor, the Crown made him a j.p., a position he may have held until his death. As far as is known, he sat in just one Parliament, the short assembly that met at Bury St. Edmunds a few months after he stood down from the mayoralty.

Walford was already involved in the wine trade some years before his election to the Commons. The brokage books of Southampton show that he imported a considerable amount of wine through that port from the summer of 1440 onwards. Brokage Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1941), 157, 158; Brokage Bk. 1443-4, i (Soton. Rec. Ser. iv), 121; ii (Soton. Rec. Ser. vi), 180, 200, 215. Among his customers was St. Mary’s chapel in his home parish of St. Michael at the North gate, to which he supplied communion wine, Oxon. RO, PAR211/4/F1/23. although he must have sold much of his wares in a tavern, apparently situated in St. Aldate’s, which he leased from Oriel College. Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 392, f. 26. During the later 1440s he fell out with one of his suppliers, Andrew James* of Southampton, who took action against him at Westminster, in the court of common pleas and the Chancery, for failing to pay for six pipes of wine delivered to him at Oxford. In his Chancery bill, James claimed that Walford owed him £15 for this wine, but the latter answered that four of the pipes in question were unfit for consumption. He added that Gilbert Kymer, the chancellor of the university, who controlled the assize of bread and ale in Oxford, had broken the heads of the bad pipes and ordered James to take them away. James countered by claiming that all of the wine was in perfect condition when Walford received it. The outcome of the quarrel is unknown, although it might have ended in favour of Walford, to whom Kymer lent his support. C1/16/615; Reg. of Congregation, 1448–63 (Oxf. Historical Soc. n.s. xxii), 401-2.

The dispute with James was just one of several in which Walford became embroiled. At some point in the 1430s or early 1440s, Richard Rudhale, a canon and civil lawyer of Oxford university, sued him in the Chancery. Rudhale claimed that Walford had refused to return various law books, bedclothes, gowns and other household items entrusted to him for safekeeping. Again, the outcome of this case is unknown since Rudhale’s bill is the only evidence relating to it. C1/11/261; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1603. At the beginning of 1434 Walford sued another burgess, John Bunting*, for debt in the mayor’s court. He claimed that the abbot of the nearby Benedictine house at Eynsham had given him a tally for £3 3s. 2d., and that Bunting, who was the abbot’s surety, owed him part of this sum (43s. 2d.). Citing local custom, Bunting responded by asserting that Walford should have taken action against him before the bailiffs of Oxford rather than the mayor’s court, and the matter was referred to a future hearing. Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 440, f. 169. Later that decade, Walford was one of several Oxford men whom the Oxfordshire esquire Richard Quatermayns* sued for debt in the common pleas, CP40/710, rot. 197. and in the late 1440s he was involved in at least two quarrels which came before the university chancellor’s court and were then referred to arbitration. Walford had further dealings with the latter court in November 1451, when it chose him to arbitrate between a university official on the one hand and a townsman and his wife on the other. A few months later, John Chapman, principal of St. Mildred Hall and fellow of Exeter College, came before the chancellor’s commissary to answer a charge of fornication with one of Walford’s female servants, but he was able to clear himself with the support of seven compurgators. Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i. 150-1, 195, 251, 257; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. i. 388.

By then Walford was nearing the end of his life, for he died on 25 Feb. 1453. Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 392, f. 26. At his death he was one of the King’s coroners in Oxford, and in the following November the Crown instructed the mayor and bailiffs to elect a replacement. The latter were slow to react to this mandate, for they received a like writ in February 1454. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 457, 458. Walford’s widow survived him but there is no evidence that she had borne him any children. Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii. 247. Oriel College, from whom he had leased his tavern, kept an obit in his memory. Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 414, f. 353.