John Fulke (c.1637–1704)
John Fulke (or Fulks, Fulkes, or Foulkes) was born in c.1637. He is likely to be the child of that name, the son of John Fulke senior, who was baptised at St Mary-the-Virgin Church on 31 May 1636, with Sarah (1631), Mary (1634), Richard (1638), and Thomas (1641) being his siblings. The mother of Thomas is named as Alice.
The John Fulke who had been admitted free on 22 September 1628 and served on Oxford city council from 1636 to c.1660, first as a Constable and then as Bailiff, is likely to have been John's father
John Fulke was an Oxford apothecary, and in January 1862 Anthony Wood wrote in his diary (i.418):
Memorandum that the 8 day, W., I took 6 pills made by John Fulke, apothecary, prescribed by Mr Richard Lower of Xt. Ch.
Jan the 10 Day, F, I made an issue in my left legg by the helpe of the said John Fulke, who dressed it afterwards 10 times with plaisters of salve, the last wherof was laid on the 22 day; and then I paid him for his pills, 1s 6d, and for making and dressing my issue, 5s.
Anthony Wood later made more payments to John Fulke, starting with 8d for eight pills on 1 May 1665. On 11 December 1666 he wrote, “I took a vomit for an ague, of Mr. Fulkes, by Mr. <John> Curteyn's praescription.” On 3 May 1667 he paid Fulke 4d for clarified whey; on 1 June 4d for a “phisick drink”; on 1 July 1s. 2d for pills; and on 1 August £3 12s 6d, which was his score when he was sick the preceding Christmas. On 13 September 1668 he was let 8 ounces of “very bad blood” by John Fulke. On 10 February 1675 Fulke charged him 5s for making an issue in his right arm towards the recovering of his hearing in his right ear. On 4 May 1677 he paid Fulke 1s 6d for a vomit, 1s for six pills, and 2d for a “cantharides pee”, followed by a purchase of six pills of Hiera picra (a cathartic powder made of aloes and canella bark) on 29 June. Wood mentions three patients who died while staying at Fulke's house, one of them a woman suffering from smallpox.
In 1665 a John Fulke paid hearth tax relating two houses in St Mary the Virgin parish:
- John Fulke the apothecary paid for two hearths on a house on the south side. Salter identified this house as 94 High Street opposite St Mary the Virgin Church on the western corner of Magpie Lane (on the site of the present Quod Restaurant)
- John Fulke (probably John Fulke senior) paid for five hearths on a house, probably on the north side of the High Street.
Similarly with the poll tax of 1667:
- John Fulke, apothecary, paid “mony and pole”: a guinea for himself, and a shilling for his apprentice Edward Franklin.
- John Fulke (presumably his father) paid a higher poll tax for himself, and also for Thomas Fulke MA, his daughters Sarah and Elizabeth, and his servant and apprentice.
In c.1668 the apothecary John Fulke married a woman called Sarah (possibly Sarah Pawlin) and they had the following children, all baptised at St Mary the Virgin Church:
- Anne Fulke (baptised 12 October 1669), described as daughter of John and Sarah
- Sarah Fulke (baptised 20 October 1670), described as daughter of John and Sarah
- Ellen or Elianor Fulke (baptised 23 October 1671), described as daughter of John and Sarah
An Eleanor Fulke, daughter of John, was buried on both 21 June 1676 and on 9 May 1680 - John Fulke I (baptised 28 April 1673), described as son of John and Sarah
Buried 31 January 1673/4, described as son of John - William Fulke (baptised 31 March 1674), described as son of John
Buried 29 April 1675, described as son of John - John Fulke II (baptised 8 February 1674/5), described as son of John
Buried 14 February 1674/5, described as son of John - Charles Fulke (baptised 13 April 1676), described as son of John
- John Fulke III and William Fulke (baptised 27 August 1678), described as sons of John
William buried 19 June 1680, described as son of John
On 29 June 1681 John's brother Thomas Fulke, M.A., the former Chaplain of Merton College, died at John's house in St Mary the Virgin parish.
On 10 October 1689 John's son Charles Fulke was matriculated at the University of Oxford at the age of 13 by University College, and was a student of the Inner Temple in 1692 when he was only 16. He is not mentioned in his father's Will of 1704, so is probably the Charles Fulke buried in St Mary the Virgin Church on 22 January 1701/2.
John Fulke the apothecary died at the age of 68 on 23 July 1704 and was buried inside St Mary the Virgin Church on 27 July. The burial register states that he was worth £600.
He has a white diamond tile in the floor of that church (right) that reads:
JOHN FULKE
Apoth: died July
ye 23 1704.
Aged 68.
His Will was proved by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in December 1704 (PROB 11/478/520) and in the Chancellor's Court at Oxford on 16 March 1705, and it is transcribed here. In his will he describes a Mr Pawlin as his father, and this could be his father-in-law.
John Fulke's widow
Sarah Fulke was living in New Woodstock (presumably with her son-in-law the Revd Robert Cocks, who was Rector there) when she signed her will on 20 September 1718 (PROB 11/567/276), transcribed here. She died shortly afterwards and was buried in St Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford on 15 October 1718. She left everything to her son-in-law Dr Robert Cocks in trust for her four surviving granddaughters (Ann, Sarah, Mary, and the second Dorothy Cocks).
John Fulke's three surviving children
- Anne Fulke (b.1669) married Robert Cocks in c.1692. He was a younger brother of the second Cocks baronet of Dumbleton, Gloucestershire who had been an undergraduate at Oriel College in Oxford and then a Fellow of Brasenose College. Their daughter Dorothy was baptised at Blockley, Gloucestershire on 3 October 1695 (but died aged 14 and was buried in St Mary the Virgin Church on 19 November 1709). Robert Cox was awarded his Doctorate in Divinity in 1695 and was appointed Rector of Great Rollright in Oxfordshire and he and Anne had at least eight children baptised there: Richard (18 May 1699), Sarah (15 July 1701), Mary Sophia (8 September 1702), Robert (9 September 1703), Thomas (3 November 1704), Susanna (7 April 1707), William (8 January 1709), and a second Dorothy (18 October 1710). Anne appears to have died in 1712. In 1715 Robert Cocks was appointed Rector of Woodstock with Bladon in Oxfordshire. In 1726 he succeeded his brother as third baronet. Sir Robert, as he then was, died on 9 February 1735/6 and was buried at Woodstock four days later. He was succeeded by his son, Robert Cocks junior, the apothecary's grandson: this younger Sir Robert, the fourth baronet, died on 4 April 1765, and as all his sons had died young the baronetcy became extinct.
- John Fulke junior (born 1678) was still alive when John Fulke senior signed his Will in 1705, but is hard to trace.
- Sarah Fulke (b.1680) married Dr William Baddiford of Exeter College at St Mary the Virgin Church on 18 September 1706. Baddiford was a medical doctor who had come up to Oxford from Dartmouth in Devon at the age of 18 in 1692/3. He was in medical practice in Exeter, Devon, by 1708. Their daughter Sarah Baddiford married William Roberts, a gentleman of All Saints, Bristol, in Bristol Cathedral on 23 May 1732.