William Oliver

William Oliver was London’s grocer and was an active member of the Grocers’ Company for at least 30 years. Like most grocers, Oliver dealt in a wide range of goods and in 1400 he even supplied the royal household with material for gunpowder. Although not much is known about his commercial interests, he had a number of influential connections and was evidently a wealthy man. In 1403 he joined with Thomas Fauconer in offering securities of £5,000 in Chancery on behalf of Philip de Albertis, a partner in the great Florentine firm of merchant bankers, the Albertini, who were much involved in the exchange of English currency abroad.

Oliver invested a substantial part of his wealth in property. He owned tenements, shops, cottages and gardens in different part of the City. In 1427, he and two other grocers obtained seisin of a hostelry known as The Lambe and the Escheker on the Hope in the parish of All Hallows, Staining, being promised security of tenure by the mercer, Thomas Palmer, under substantial guarantees of £80. Out of London he owned the manor of Croham in Croydon, Surrey, and two messuages and a plot of land in ‘Woldham’, Kent.

Oliver did not hold many civic offices but was nevertheless respected in the City and within London’s mercantile community. He died between 19 Dec. 1432 and 8 Feb. 1433 and was buried in the church of St. Thomas Acon.