Past Talks
From Axtell to Zacharias: The men who built Oxford
Date: 15th January 2024
Speaker: Liz Woolley
From Axtell to Zacharias: The Men who Built Oxford – Liz Woolley 15th January 2024
The Victorian period saw a huge expansion of Oxford’s suburbs around the mediaeval core, quadrupling in size during the 19th century. Liz Woolley’s talk introduced us to the men and organisations who shaped the development of the city. They included building societies (which were often politically motivated), large and small speculative builders, and middle-class men of business who dabbled in property development. Several of them played multiple roles in business, politics and local government.
George Parsons Hester was a solicitor and later Town Clerk of Oxford who bought Osney Island in the early 1850s. He anticipated the need for housing due to the building of a new railway station. The scheme, although successful for Hester, produced poor quality housing that was prone to flooding. In 1867, he bought land off the Botley Road and, although his plan was rejected, again, due to the risk of flooding, ninety houses for artisans were built.
Samuel Lipscomb Seckham was an architect and developer who was instrumental in the creation of Park Town. The land, consisting of nine acres, had originally been purchased by the Guardians of the Poor with a view to building a workhouse. However, the estate, designed by Seckham, was marketed to the middle class. The Park Town Estate Company was formed in 1857 through Seckham’s efforts and he secured ownership of much of the development.
William Wilkinson lacked any formal architectural training, but aged just twenty-two years, he designed the parish church at Lew, Oxon. From 1860, he laid out the Norham Manor estate in north Oxford. He was eventually responsible for fourteen hundred houses built on land owned by St John’s College, which is considered to be the finest Victorian suburb in the UK. He designed the Randolph Hotel in 1866. After his retirement, his nephew, HW Moore continued his work.
Sir Walter Gray was a speculative property developer who saw the need for additional housing in the city when, in 1877, dons were allowed to marry. Rising from humble beginnings to be a stationmaster in Lincolnshire and then a college servant at Keble College, he was self-educated in finance. In 1881 he was elected a Conservative councillor for the North Ward. Giving up his job at Keble College, he went into partnership with the builder John Money and made his fortune in speculative development. He was mayor of Oxford on four occasions.
There existed a number of small investors in the property market. These included Joel Zacharias, who had his shop in Cornmarket selling waterproof clothing. ‘Zacs for Macs’ was a well-known advertising slogan around Oxford. In 1894, he purchased land off the Cowley Road for development.
George Pipkin built houses all over the city and was the founder of G C Pipkin & Sons. He was mayor in 1934/5 and Pipkin Way off the Boundary Brook Road in East Oxford is named after him.
In 1876, William Loxley teamed up with a fellow carpenter George Edward Benfield to work on the restoration of the roof of New College Chapel. Their first major building contract was for Magdalen College School (boarding) house. Benfield & Loxley erected the original Morris Motor works and still trades today.
Other notable builders and tradesmen included Thomas Axtell, a stonemason and partner in the firm of Symm & Co, which closed in 2020, and Thomas Henry Kingerlee, who moved to Oxford from Banbury in 1883. By 1900 Kingerlee were the biggest housebuilders and landlords in Oxford. The Picture Palace, Walton St; the ice rink; the Marmalade Factory and Pressed Steel in Cowley are among their projects. The firm continues to the present day, under the fifth generation of family ownership.