Family and Education

b. by 1523.1

Offices Held

Overseer of the marsh, Peterborough 1548-9, churchwarden 1549-50, bailiff city lands by Dec. 1556.2

Biography

William Liveley first appears as a juror at the dean and chapter’s court leet in September 1544. A merchant able to contribute at the highest rate to the benevolence levied in Mary’s reign for the restoration of the parish church, he held several minor offices in the city. In 1551 the dean and chapter granted him a 60-year lease of the reversion of Pratt’s house at a rent of 20s. and in the same year he took the copyhold lease of a cottage in Combersgate from John Mee. The dean and chapter had been lords of the city since the erection of the see, and both Liveley and his fellow-Member Gilbert Bull were their tenants. The choice of two residents in the autumn of 1554 may have been a response to the Queen’s directive to that effect. In October 1583 a house in Market Street was held by a William Liveley and a year later other property was identified as having been lately in his tenure. If he was the former Member, this is the last reference found.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. M. Thorpe

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference.
• 2. Northants. Rec. Soc. ix. 247; xii. 72, 76, 79; xiii. p. xl; Peterborough cat. lib., Mountstevings reg. ii. f. 36.
• 3. Northants. Rec. Soc. ix. 168; xii. 67, 69, 83; xviii. 172, 173; Peterborough cath. lib. Dean Pierse estate bk. p. 14; Dean Courthorpe’s reg. ff. 3v, 51v-52.