(Above) The St Ebbe’s gas works railway bridge, Oxford, constructed in 1886 to carry a spur of the Great Western Railway over the Thames and into the gas works site. Read about this and other historic Oxford bridges in the latest blogpost from Morris Oxford.
All members of local history societies and groups that are members of OLHA are themselves members of OLHA automatically, and this e-bulletin is for everyone. Hence, if you are on the committee of a local history group or society, please make sure that this e-bulletin is forwarded to all your members by sending them this url. Thank you.
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Not a member of OLHA yet? Join now! It costs less than £1 a month!
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A new exhibition, Signs of the Times, is now open at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock until 27 March.
Most of the signs, posters and adverts have never been exhibited before and, from the East Oxford Slipper Baths to Young’s sheep dips, they give a varied and colourful glimpse into the county’s past. They also raise some interesting questions: do you know anything about H Eyre, a Banbury yeast merchant, or where Oxfordshire’s salt warehouse was?
Read more about it here.
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Thame Park – A History is a new exhibition at Thame Museum which runs until 31 March. Explore the fascinating history of one of Thame’s oldest and grandest houses, whose site was originally that of a Cistercian monastery founded in 1140.
Free and open to all; further information here.
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Further to the recent publication of the Oxford volume of the British Historic Towns Atlas, archaeologist Julian Munby will give an on-line talk, Mapping Medieval Oxford, at 7pm on Wednesday 16 March. The talk is part of a series run by the British Association for Local History (BALH) in partnership with the Historic Towns Trust.
Futher information and booking here. Don’t forget to quote OLHA’s discount code - F-21506O - to get a ticket for only £3.
Copies of the Oxford atlas can be ordered here.
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The Oxfordshire Museums Service and Eynsham Museum and Heritage Centre will host Eynsham Heritage Day on Saturday 19 March, 10am to 4pm. The event will include walking tours, exhibitions, open buildings, family activities, and a chance to meet the county’s Finds Liaison O fficer.
Free and open to all; further information here.
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Volunteers at Combe Mill replacing the Allday and Onions round bellows after refurbishment and treatment with neat’s-foot oil.
Combe Mill near Long Hanborough will re-open to visitors on Wednesday 23 March, with its first steaming event on Sunday 17 April. The mill’s large team of volunteers has been busy over the winter carrying out maintenance and repairs, and photographing and recording hundreds of mill artefacts as part of the museum accreditation process.
Further information about activities and events at the mill here.
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Communities of Dissent 1850-1914 is a day conference (postponed from October) to be held in Oxford on Saturday 30 April, organised by The Chapels Society in association with Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
It is one of the outcomes of a project about Nonconformity by the Family & Community Historical Research Society, led by Oxfordshire’s Dr Kate Tiller, which investigated experiences of chapel culture in local areas of England and Wales. The conference will present the results of this research, and of other recent studies on the significance of chapels and chapel life during the Victorian and Edwardian heyday of Nonconformity in Britain.
Further infomation and booking here.
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Employees at Morrell’s Lion Brewery in St Thomas’s, Oxford, 1916.
A free exhibition about the history of the parishes of St Thomas’s and St Ebbe’s in Oxford continues its travels; it is at the Oxfordshire History Centre in Cowley until 12 March, and at the West Oxford Community Centre from 14 March to 16 April.
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As reported in previous e-bulletins, the British Association for Local History (BALH) has teamed up with Pharos Tutors to offer short topic-based on-line courses on a variety of local and family history subjects.
Forthcoming courses (from March) include Local History - Uncovering the Places and Communities Connected to your Ancestors. Most courses last 4 or 5 weeks and are reasonably at around £50.
Further information and booking here.
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Author and comedian Richard O Smith is an entertaining and accomplished speaker and tour guide specialising in Oxford’s eccentric history. His books include Oxford Z-A: 1000 Years of History in 26 Letters and Oxford Examined: Town & Clown, which was described as the funniest book ever written about Oxford by Countdown’s Susie Dent. Historian Dr Lucy Worsley appraised Oxford Student Pranks: A History of Mischief & Mayhem as “a jam-packed jamboree of jollity.” Richard contributes to several BBC comedies including The Now Show and News Quiz.
Find out about Richard’s talks and walks, and how to contact him, here.
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Many Oxfordshire history societies are getting back to meeting in person, whilst others are still holding talks on-line. Either way, there are interesting history and local history talks on offer across the county almost every weekday. To see a detailed daily listing, go to OLHA’s website.
Here is a selection for March: |
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As local historians, we benefit hugely from free resources like those provided by the Oxfordshire History Centre in Cowley (above). Oxfordshire County Council’s Library and Heritage Strategy is out for consultation until 18 March. The more public responses to the consultation the better, as councillors and staff do their best to protect these valuable services in difficult times.
So please take a few minutes to have your say here.
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The Oxfordshire History Centre (OHC) carried out its annual stocktake in January. The centre closed to visitors for two weeks whilst staff focused on core activities behind the scenes, helping to keep the building running smoothly and its archive collections safely and efficiently stored. The reorganisation of thousands of boxes, volumes, and maps led to some surprising discoveries, including a cache of historic printed ephemera relating to Levi Hathaway (1870-1958), a shepherd who lived in Enstone.
Read all about it in OHC’s latest blogpost.
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Dorchester Abbey Museum is looking for a volunteer curator. This part-time post is an exciting opportunity to help take the museum into the next phase of its development.
Further details here.
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The latest e-newsletter from the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock includes a link to recent talk by historians Ashley Jackson and David Lough on Churchill in Oxfordshire, and an appeal for objects and stories for a new exhibition, Military Life: A Child’s Experience, which is due to go on display at the museum in June.
Read more here.
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Part of a human jawbone, one of the recent finds which suggest the existence of a pre-historic burial mound on the Frewin Hall site in Oxford (image: Oxford Archaeology).
Further to our report last month that Oxford Archaeology had unearthed part of the foundations of the ‘lost’ college of St Mary’s near New Inn Hall Street in central Oxford, archaeologists have now found evidence of a 4,000-year-old circular burial mound on the site.
Read more of the story here.
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The latest blogpost from the Museum of Oxford focuses on the 19th-century writer, reformer, and philanthropist Felicia Skene. Skene was very active in what would now be called ‘social work’ in the poorest of Oxford’s parishes, and made significant contributions to prison reform at a national level. A very modest figure, widely respected by both town and gown, she said of herself in later life “I am like the Martyrs’ Memorial: everyone knows me and no-one is interested in me.”
Read the blogpost here.
You can also listen to a podcast about Felicia Skene, recorded in 2018 as part of the University of Oxford’s Women in Oxford’s History series.
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The Bodleian Library in Oxford houses many documents of interest to local historians, including estate and parish maps. A useful list of these (up to 1850) can be found here.
Information about how to get a reader’s card so that you can view documents held in the Bodleian is here.
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The latest e-newsletter from the British Association for Local History (BALH) is available here. It’s full of information about forthcoming on-line talks and webinars. Remember to quote OLHA’s membership code - F-21506O - to get discounted tickets for some events.
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A reminder that Pugmill Press, a small independent publisher of non-fiction books, is running a local history writing competition, Hidden Gem Prizes. There are two categories, cash prizes, and the possibility of publication. Entries must be in by 22 March.
More information here.
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Edith Stedman, a retired American academic, visited Dorchester-on-Thames every summer for over twenty years. Her charming and amusing account of life in the village during the 1950s to 1970s, A Yankee in an English Village, has been reissued fifty years after its original publication. It includes additional explanatory notes and twelve pages of historic photographs.
Further information and ordering here.
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Oxford Workhouses is a new publication from the Museum of Oxford Searchers Group. The book gives a background to the causes of poverty and how poor relief was organised both nationally and locally, and histories of eight workhouses which operated in and around Oxford between the 17th and 20th centuries.
Copies are available from the Museum of Oxford’s shop (in Oxford Town Hall) or by e-mailing museum@oxford.gov.uk.
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If you have any items for the next OLHA e-bulletin, please send brief text and low resolution images to Liz Woolley by 24 March.
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