Family name also spelled BILLINGE and BYLLYNGE.
The Oxfordshire Visitation refers to William Billing as father of John but erroneously shows John having married firstly Theobalda Halliday and secondly Elizabeth daughter of Hugh Weldon. These were William's wives, not John's, and Elizabeth Weldon was his first, not second, wife. This is evidenced by William’s Will (see below) and their tombs in Deddington Chapel. William is alluded to but not named in the Warwickshire Visitation as the father of Jane who married Anthony Skynner: Jana filia . . . . . . . Billing Capitalis Justiciar Angliæ (Jane daughter of . . . . . . . Billing, Chief Justice of England). Here the informant has confused William Billing with his grandfather, Thomas Billing, who was indeed a Chief Justice of England.
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William Billing, Merchant of the Staple. 1
William Billing is recorded on the small remaining section of a mutilated brass on his altar tomb in Deddington church:
Of youre charity praye for the soule of Willm Billing, m'chnt of the Staple, at Calays, which decessyd the 28th daye of Auguste, ano 1533, And for the soule of Elizabeth, hys wife, which decessyd the --- daye of ---ber ano 1522.
This tomb, at the east end of the north aisle, was set up in what was then the chantry chapel. In 1445 the newly established Guild of the Holy Trinity obtained leave to found a chantry for two chaplains to celebrate at the altars of the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin. This Altar Tomb had a brass inlay of a crucifix and two kneeling figures, but this has been mutilated, the metal having been stolen by the sexton early in the 18th century and sold to a brazier at Bicester.
William is the only known son of John Billing of Aylesbury. He, and his two daughters, Jane and Mary, are mentioned in his father's will, 1510. Not mentioned in this will are William's sons John and Edward, as presumably, they were not yet born....
William held several freehold and leasehold estates in Deddington and villages around. In 1513, the earliest reference found, half of the manor of Ardley was conveyed to him by John and Joan Croft and in 1517 he acquired the other half from John Guise. In 1521, as lord of Ardley, he also held the advowson.
The parish of Deddington's assessment in the 1523-4 lay subsidy was far heavier than those of the large neighbouring villages, such as Bloxham and Adderbury, and even Banbury the market town itself. In 1523 a total of £34 16s. was paid by 104 inhabitants (71 in Deddington, 25 in Clifton and 8 in Hempton), of whom William Billing paid as much as £10 10s.... The following year 98 parishioners paid £27 12s. 10d., of which Billing contributed £11. In 1526 he was one of only three in the Wootton Hundred with land worth more than £50 per annum. In 1523 the parish levy of Deddington was £62 8s. 10d. of which William Billing contributed £21 10s (34.4%). In 1529 (21 Hen. VIII):
A fine was passed between Edmund Peckham (Treasurer of the Mint), Robert Cheyne Esquire, Elizabeth daughter of the same Robert Cheyne, and second wife of Benedict Lee of Hulcote (near Aylesbury), William Walsingham, Paul Dayrell, and John Williams, with William Billing and Theobalda his wife, of a manor and lands in Oving.
In 1530 Edmund Peckham and Ann his wife granted a moiety of a manor in Milcombe to William Billing. This comprised of a farmhouse, 4 yardlands and Milcombe mill.
William Billing is seen to have prospered in the wool trade in spite of the fact that it was in sharp decline in his lifetime. ' Medieval references to a woolmonger, a draper, and a weaver, and to a substantial sum owed by two Deddington men as customs duty in the port of London in 1338, suggest participation in the wool and cloth trades. Such features as the 15th-century vaulted cellar in New Street, and the foundation of a guild in 1445, also hint at the survival of a mercantile class. William Billing, the town's wealthiest inhabitant in 1523/4, was a merchant of the Staple.
Early in the 13th century the merchants who were engaged in this principal trade across the Channel to Flanders found it to their advantage to form a trading association. It was beneficial to control the export of wool through a single town or staple. The wool merchants thus became known as the Merchants of the Staple. Many places were tried during the 14th century as locations for the Staple, both in England and abroad, but by 1390 it settled permanently upon Calais, where it remained until the loss of that town to the French in 1558, by which time this trade had all but died out.
William Billing's house in Deddington was in Huff or Hoof Lane, later called Horse Fair, and later still, in 1771, re-named Red Lion Street. The present Red Lion Inn has no connection.
From the tomb in the old chantry chapel we find that William's wife was Elizabeth -------, who had died in 1522. From his will [see below] he had married again to Tybalde (Theobalda) -------. From Harley MSS 1556 f. 98b and 808 f. 38 (pp. 148 & 150), it is found that she was Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Weldon of Horseydowne [i.e. Horsleydown] in Southwark. The name Horselydown Lane is still remembered in a street on the Surrey east end of Tower Bridge. Rotherhithe, which is hard by, was a shipping point for wool across the Channel to Calais.... Tybalde, a widow, was the daughter of William Halliday of Rodborough in the Stroudwater area of Gloucestershire. Strowdewater, as it is spelled on the Harley MS, was a centre of the woollen cloth trade — one of the earliest cloths, akin to Worsted cloth, was known as Strowdewater. So was William anticipating the rise in the woollen cloth trade or was he collecting raw wool from the growers and moving it in packhorse trains from this end of the Cotswolds to Deddington?
.... The family of William and Elizabeth (d. 1522) can be found quite easily from William's will and that of his father of 1510: Jane and Mary mentioned in the latter, but not any sons. In 1533 they are alive and married while a son, John, is found married to El(ea)nor; another son, Edward, born after 1510, was either dead by 1533 or had perhaps fled abroad to Germany or the Netherlands....
In 1510 William was co-executor and the residuary legatee of his father's Will, in which he was also bequeathed half the silver plate in his father's house in Aylesbury, Bucks.
Sometime after 1492 we find a reference in the UK Archives for John Wilkins of Deddington, Oxfordshire, v William Billing of Deddington, merchant of the Staple at Calais concerning tenements and lands in Deddington.2
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Abstract of the Will of William Billing [of the Parish of Deddington in the County of Oxfordshire], proved 10 Oct 1534.3
(Names of family members are underlined.)
Wills that his body be buried in the church of Deddington in the Trinity Guild beside his wife Elizabeth.
Makes his executors his wife Tybalde and his son John.
Bequeaths to his wife Tybalde £15 for her jointure according to indenture. He also bequeaths to her during her widowhood his house in Deddington where he currently lives. After her decease he gives his house to his son John.
Item. He bequeaths his lands to his son John Byllynge, said lands to be put into the hands of feoffees to his advantage. He makes his feoffees Doctor London, William Gouston, George Owen and Raufe London, to each of whom he gives 4 marks for their labours.
Item. He gives to Rafe London and his wife Mary, William's daughter, £40 and a goblet with a cover having his father's mark.
Item. He bequeaths to Anthony Skynner and his wife £20 and a 'mawdlyn boxe' gilt with a cover.
Item. All the rest of his goods and chattels he gives to his wife Tybalde, on condition she delivers to his son John the sum of £400 when he reaches the age of 24 years.
Item. Wills that if his wife Tybalde remarry before his son John turns 24 then she is to deliver the said £400 to the new college in Oxford for the behoof of his said son.
Item. Bequeaths to Sir Lambert 9 marks to sing for his soul for a year, beginning at Michaelmas next.
Item. Gives 3 shillings 4 pence to the church of Lincell?
Item. Wills that £5 be distributed at his burial for his soul etc...
And out of the rest of his lands he tithes £10 yearly to his daughters Mary and Jane, and to each of his wife's daughters Margaret, Elinor and Anne, he gives 20 shillings yearly, and to Robert Skynner he gives 33 shillings 4 pence yearly.
Item. Gives half his plate to his son John and the other half to his wife. If his son John dies before turning 24 then the said £400 is to go to his wife and to his son John's wife Elinor.
Makes as overseers of his will Doctor London and his brother Guston, paying to each of them £3 6s. 8d. for their pains.
Witnesses: George Owen, D. Thurston.....
Research Notes: