Richard Wootten (1765–1848)
Mayor of Oxford 1815/16 and 1834/5
Richard Wootten was born in Oxford on 30 August 1765 and baptised at St Michael's Church on 13 September. He was the son of Richard Wootten junior and the grandson of Richard Wootten senior who both served on Oxford city council in the eighteenth century.
The future Mayor's grandfather, Richard Wootten I, the son of Oxford the hempdresser William Wootten and his wife Katherine, was born on 25 February (Shrove Tuesday) 1706/7 and baptised at St Michael's Church in Oxford on Ash Wednesday. He was a tailor in Cornmarket and came on to the council in 1763: he rose to Senior Bailiff and remained on the council in 1782.
The future Mayor's father, Richard Wootten II was born in about 1736 and also worked as a tailor. He had a shop in Broad Street opposite Balliol College. He married Elizabeth West of St Mary Magdalen parish at St Michael-at-the-Northgate Church on 24 January 1763 and came on to the council in 1765. As well as the third Richard Wootten, he couple had two other sons: Thomas West Wootten (born 28 December 1763 and baptised at St Michael's Church on 24 January 1764) and John Clarke Wootten (born in January 1768 and baptised at St Michael's Church on 25 February).
The future Mayor's father Richard Wootten II, died at the age of 36 and was buried in the chancel of St Michael-at-the-Northgate Church on 10 March 1770, and his mother Elizabeth Wootten died at the age of 31 and was buried with her husband on 12 November 1773. Orphaned at the age of eight, young Richard appears to have been looked after by his Wootten grandparents, as his grandfather Richard Wootten paid £105 on 1 May 1780 to apprentice him at the age of 14 to the Oxford mercer Thomas Castle. Three years later his grandfather Richard Wootten senior I died at the age of 75 and was buried in St Michael-at-the-Northgate churchyard on 12 December 1783. In his Will (PROB 11/1113/10) he left £300 in Government Securities to young Richard.
Richard would have completed his apprenticeship in 1787, and he then went to London, but returned to Oxford the following year. On 22 March 1788 when he was still only aged 22 he inserted the following advertisement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal to say he was fitting up a shop in the High Street, boasting of the experience he had “in one of the first Houses in London”:
A few weeks later the shop was ready, and he inserted the following advertisement on 12 April 1788:
In May 1788 Richard Wootten took on his first apprentice, John Smith, and on 16 June 1788 was admitted free.
On 9 January 1790 at St Botolph's Church, Sibson, Leicestershire Richard Wootten married his first wife Ann Dickinson, the daughter of William Dickinson Esq of Twycross in Leicestershire, and the marriage announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal described Wootten as an “Oxford mercer and haberdasher”. They had three children:
- Richard Wootten (baptised on 5 March 1791 at St Martin’s Church)
- William Wootten I (baptised on 8 September 1792 at St Martin’s Church, died aged one, buried 10 September 1793)
- John Wootten I (baptised on 6 September 1793 at St Martin’s Church, died aged two)
Richard Wootten was appointed cloth searcher in September 1792 and came on to the common council in 1794, paying £3 10s and 3s 4d to avoid serving as Constable.
In February 1793 Wootten took on William Steel as his apprentice, in December 1795 Charles Moore, and November 1798 John Newell.
Richard Wootten's first wife Ann Wootten née Dickenson died in 1793 and was buried at St Martin's Church on 6 September, the same day that her baby son John was baptised.
On 29 January 1795 at St Helen's Church in Abingdon, Richard Wootten, described as a widower of St Martin's parish, married his second wife Mary Coleman of Abingdon, and the marriage notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal published over seven months later on 7 September 1795 described him as a woollen draper of the city. They had the following eight children:
- Rebecca Wootten (baptised on 16 February 1797 at St Martin’s Church)
- Mary Spicer Wootten (baptised on 19 May 1798 at St Martin’s Church)
- John Wootten II (baptised on 4 October 1799 at St Martin’s Church);
- William Wootten II (baptised on 20 July 1801 at St Martin’s Church)
- Charles Wootten (baptised on 18 March 1803 at St Martin’s Church)
- Elizabeth Wootten (baptised on 11 January 1805 at St Martin’s Church, died aged six months and buried on 29 July)
- George Wootten and
Thomas Wootten (twins) (baptised on 9 July 1806 at St Martin’s Church)
Richard Wootten was elected City (or Junior) Chamberlain for 1801/2.
His second wife Mary Wootten died on 27 June 1806 at the age of 31 soon after giving birth to the twins and was buried at St Martin's Church on 3 July.
By 1807 he was described as “Richard Wootten, Esq. Banker, Oxford”.
On 18 July 1808 at St Mary's Church, Chessington, Richard Wootten married his third wife, Elizabeth Coleman, and they had one child:
- Elizabeth Wootten (baptised on 7 August 1811 at St Martin's Church).
Richard Wootten was elected Senior Bailiff for 1811/12, one of the eight Assistants on 20 April 1815, and in September 1815 Mayor of Oxford for the first time (for 1815/16).
In March 1816 his second surviving son John Wootten (16) was matriculated at the University of Oxford from Lincoln College. He migrated to Balliol College, obtaining a First in Mathematics and Physics. He was elected Physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1830.
On 15 August 1816 near the end of his year of office as Mayor, Wootten perambulated the boundaries of the city and gave a supper at his house to the city officers and councillors who accompanied him.
By October 1818, Richard Wootten had moved and his home was henceforth described as “Rose Hill, Iffley”. His house (presumably the one named “Wootten”) stands above Iffley Turn, next to the house called Beechwood. It still has large grounds, but lost some of its land when Wootten Drive was created in 1978.
On 31 October 1818 at Iffley Church, Richard Wootten's daughter Mary Spicer Wootten of Iffley (who who was not yet 21) married William Undershell, a tanner of Bermondsey, and their marriage was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 7 November 1818. They had three children, all born in London: William Undershell junior (baptised at St Martin’s Church in Oxford on 25 April 1820); Georgiana (baptised at Iffley Church on. 30 August 1821; and Mary Undershell (born on 24 November 1822 and baptised at St Mary's Church in Stoke Newington on 20 December).
On 19 April 1820 Richard Wootten's fourth surviving son Charles Wootten (17) was matriculated at the University of Oxford from Lincoln College.
On 30 June 1821 his third surviving son William Wootten died aged 20 after a few days' illness.
In 1823 Wootten’s shop in the High Street at Carfax was still listed in Pigot’s Directory for Oxford, but in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 24 March 1827 the linen draper John Breakspear announced he would in future be carrying on his business “at his house on Carfax, late in the occupation of Richard Wootten, Esq.” Wootten presumably gave up his shop soon after becoming a banker. He also developed some land in St Ebbe’s that he had leased from the council since 1809.
At some point Richard Wootten also took over Wootten’s Brewery in St Clement’s: this was in Little Brewery Street off Cherwell Street, and was taken over by Hall’s in 1896. (A certain William Wootten, brewer of Oxford, had apprenticed his son, a different Richard Wootten who would have been born in about 1760, to the cordwainer James Clements on 1 May 1775, and it seems likely that the Richard Wootten who was Mayor inherited the brewery from this side of the family.)
On1 January 1826 his second daughter Mary Spicer Undershell, died in London at the age of 27 after a very long illness and was buried at St Mary's Church, Newington on 9 January.
On 26 May 1827 his eldest daughter Rebecca Wootten married William Cole, Esq. of Launton at Iffley Church, with the marriage announcement in the newspaper describing her father as a banker.
On 24 September 1827 at St Peter-in-the-East Church, Richard Wootten, described as a widower of Iffley, married his third wife, Miss Elizabeth Smith of that parish.
In 1828 two more of Richard Wootten's sons died:
- On 12 February 1828 his youngest son George Wootten died at the age of 21 and was buried at Iffley Church on 17 February.
- On 25 April 1828 his fourth surviving son Charles Wootten died at the age of 25 after a long illness and was buried at Iffley Church on 30 April 1828. (He was described in the burial register as being of St Ebbe's.)
On 15 September 1834 Richard Wootten was elected Mayor a second time (for 1834/5), and this term lasted 15 months because he was the last Mayor to serve before the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 instituted a new system and a new Mayor on 1 January 1836. William Tuckwell in his Reminiscences of Oxford (1901) describes him thus:
“The Mayor of Oxford was an old Mr. Wootten, brewer, banker, and farmer, dressed always in blue brass-buttoned coat, cords, top-boots, and powdered hair. He was told that he must pay his respects to the Queen [Queen Adelaide, who visited Oxford in 1835]; so he drove to the Angel in his wonderful one-horse-chaise, a vehicle in which Mr and Mrs Bubb might have made their historic jaunt to Brighton, and was introduced to her Majesty by the Chamberlain, Lord Howe. She held out her hand to be kissed: the Mayor shook it heartily, with the salutation: “How d’ye do, marm; how’s the king?”
Wootten retired from the council on 1 January 1836. The 1841 census shows Wootten in his 70s, still living at his house in Iffley, with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Elizabeth, who was now aged 29. Also living with them were the three children of his late daughter Mary: William Undershell junior, a banker’s clerk aged 21, and Georgiana and Mary Undershell, aged about 20 and 15.
Wootten was soon to go into partnership with his young grandson William Undershell (1819–1887), who first adopted the surname Wootten-Undershell and then Wootten-Wootten.
His third wife Elizabeth Wootten died at Iffley after a long and painful illness at the age of 68 on 14 September 1843 and was buried in her family’s church at St Peter-in-the-East on 19 September.
His son John Wootten, a doctor at 40/41 Broad Street, died aged 47 on 26 August 1847 and was buried at Iffley Church.
On 1 July 1847 the London Gazette announced that the banking business under the name of the Bicester & Oxfordshire Bank (established in 1793), which until then was carried on at Bicester by Richard Wootten the elder, Henry Michael Tubb, and Richard Wootten the younger, in partnership with Thomas Tubb (deceased), would henceforth be carried on at Oxford by Richard Wootten the elder and Richard Wootten the younger.
Richard Wootten died in September 1848, and there was a brief announcement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal: “On Saturday the 9th inst. at Rose Hill, Iffley, aged 83, Richard Wootten, Esq. banker of this city.” He was buried at Iffley Church on 19 September 1848.
Wootten was survived by only three of his twelve children. In his will he left his property in the parish of Launton near Bicester and his house in Oxford’s High Street to his only surviving son Richard Wootten junior and his freehold, leasehold, and copyhold estates at Rose Hill and elsewhere in Iffley to his as yet unmarried daughter Elizabeth Wootten. He left £2,000 to his married daughter Rebecca Cole (with £1,000 to her husband William Cole and their four children William Douglas Cole, Elizabeth Rebecca Cole, Richard Wootten Cole, and Mary Cole). He also left legacies to his Undershell grandchildren: £3,000 each to William Wootten Undershell and John Undershell, and £1,000 each to Georgiana Undershell and Mary Knapp Undershell.
Wootten’s three surviving children
- Richard Wootten junior (born 1791) lived at Headington Hill (probably at the house now called Pullen’s Gate). In 1861 he was living alone with one servant at “Headington Gate”, and was described as a banker. Richard Wootten junior died a bachelor at the age of 77 and was buried at Iffley Church on 22 March 1867.
- Rebecca Wootten, Mrs Cole (born 1797) was living at the Market Place, Bicester in 1841 with her husband William Cole (a man of independent means) and their children Elizabeth (11), Richard (9), and Mary (6), plus three servants. In 1851 their address was given as London Road, Market End, Bicester and three of their children were at home: William Douglas Cole (described like his father as gentleman), Rebecca Elizabeth Cole (21), and Mary Cole (16), and again they had three servants. Their eldest son Richard Wootten Cole died in Bicester at the age of 22 and was buried there on 21 February 1854. Rebecca's husband William Cole died at Bicester at the age of 71 on 29 January 1857, and Rebecca Cole née Wootten died at Bicester at the age of 75 and was buried there on 28 March 1871.
- John Wootten II (born 1799) became a well-known Oxford physician. He predeceased his father on 26 August 1847.
- Elizabeth Wootten (born 1811) married the Revd John Slatter at Bicester on 27 June 1849. He was born in Iffley in 1817, the son of the Revd William Slatter and his wife Ann, and after gaining his degree at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1838 served as the Curate of Sandford-on-Thames. At the time of the 1851 census Elizabeth (39) and John (34) were living in Iffley with three servants, probably in their father's old house. In 1861 their address was given as Iffley Turn, and they had a seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth Anne Slatter. Later that year John Slatter was appointed Vicar of Streatley in Berkshire, and In 1871 they were living in the vicarage there with their daughter Elizabeth (17) and four servants. In 1880 he was appointed Rector of Whitchurch in Berkshire. Elizabeth Slatter née Wootten died on 25 November 1886 and was buried in St John the Baptist churchyard at Whitchurch.
Wootten’s grandchildren (the children of his daughter Mary Undershell, who predeceased him)
- William Wootten Undershell (born 1820) became a prosperous banker, and bought Headington House. He had nine children there between 1851 and 1866, all registered with the surname Undershell, but on 1 July 1867 the whole family changed their surname from Undershell to Wootten. At the same time the family banking firm changed its name from W. W. & J. Undershell to Wootten & Company. On 17 January 1887 William Wootten-Wootten, formerly William Wootten Undershell dropped dead at the age of 67 on arriving for a meeting at his bank in St Aldate’s (inquest reported in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 22 January).
- Georgiana Undershell (born 1820) married the Revd William Slatter at Iffley on 22 April 1856.
- Mary Knapp Undershell (born 1822) married John Powell in the Headington registration district in 1863.
Listing of Wootten’s bank in directories:
- Pigot’s Directory of 1823: Tubb, Wootten, & Tubb in St Aldate’s
- Robson’s Commercial Directory of 1839: Wootten, Tubb & Co at 2 St Aldate’s (Tubb was probably the William Tubb who was Mayor in 1814)
- Gardner’s Directory for 1852: Messrs Undershell, Wootten & Co. (drawing on Masterman, Peters & Co., London) at 3 St Aldate’s
- Post Office Directory of 1854: Richard Wootten, banker, St Clements
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entry numbered 2524 for Wootten's relation with the same name, and entries numbered 2635, 2850, 3001, 3069, and 3155 for himself
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 16 September 1848, p. 4b (brief death notice)
- PCC Will PROB 11/1113/10 (Will of Richard Wootten, Gentleman of Oxford, proved 7 January 1784) (his grandfather)
- PCC Will PROB 1/2090/328 (Will of Richard Wootten of Oxford, the Mayor, proved 20 March 1849)
- 1841 Census: Oxford (Iffley), 877/04/10
