Oxfordshire History Centre

Home
United Kingdom
Oxford
Oxfordshire History Centre

Call Directions Website

We're the archive and local studies centre for Oxfordshire. We are part of Oxfordshire County Council. Thank you for reading the above and visiting our page.

We welcome discussion about the Oxfordshire History Service and will always seek to answer your queries and pass your feedback on to the relevant person or department. However, we may remove postings that do not observe the following:

• Be civil, tasteful, and relevant
• Do not post messages that are unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, or racially offensive
• Do not swear
• Do not post content for which you do not own the copyright
• Do not post the same message, or very similar messages, more than once (i.e. don't spam)
• Do not post other people’s personal information
• Do not advertise products or services
• Do not impersonate someone else

We reserve the right to block users who are unable to abide by these conditions.

20/10/2026

We’ll be at Oxfordshire Family History Society’s Family History Fair this weekend. The fair will be held at The Cherwell School, Oxford, on Saturday 24th October 2026. Doors will open to the public at 10:00 and close at 16:00.

There will be a number of family and local history societies present to provide information, offer advice and answer your questions.

This is also the 50th year that OFHS has been in operation and we’d like to wish them a very happy birthday! They’ll be hosting a series of special talks on family history research and military history during the fair. For more information on stallholders, directions and talks, please see the webpages here: https://www.ofhs.uk/events/event/ofhs-family-history-fair-24th-october-2026.

15/10/2026

Wishing a big Happy Birthday to The Oxfordshire Museum! Today marks 60 years since the museum first opened on 15th October 1966.

They've commissioned a film featuring supporters, staff and volunteers past and present sharing their memories and detailing it's history. Watch it on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2jKlRNJwRo.

For information on visiting The Oxfordshire Museum, check out their webpages: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/museums-and-history/oxfordshire-museum.

13/10/2026

John Marriott Davenport: Oxfordshire’s super-administrator

Some names pop up in our archive records again and again. In 19th century collections one of the most notable is John M. Davenport (1809-1882).

He was born in Shirburn to a well-to-do family. As a young man, Davenport became a solicitor in Oxford in the employ of Thomas Henry Taunton. Taunton was Clerk of the Peace for Oxfordshire at this time. The Clerk of the Peace was a prominent role responsible for much of the everyday administration of the county through the Quarter Sessions. The Quarter Sessions had judicial and administrative responsibilities – it was a court of law and also oversaw asylums, the county prison, elements of public health and licensing and the maintenance of county roads and bridges, amongst much else. The Clerk also provided legal advice and managed the records of the Sessions. On Taunton’s death in 1831, Davenport was made Clerk of the Peace – he was just 21 years old!

John Davenport served in this role for 50 years, until 1881. His obituary in the Oxford Journal describes him as ‘a model Clerk of the Peace’, noting that ‘to enumerate the County business in which he took a more or less prominent part would be to write a local history of the last fifty years’.

Alongside this he was Diocesan Secretary to two Bishops of Oxford (Bishop Wilberforce and Bishop Mackarness), serving in the role from 1855 to 1877. Lest we accuse him of slacking (!) he was also elected Under-Sheriff for Oxfordshire every year between 1853 and 1874, along with serving on a number of local committees, acting as a governor to institutions including the Radcliffe Infirmary and Warneford Asylum, and holding other appointments including Deputy Registrar of Oxford Diocese and Registrar of the Court of Probate. His work and the records he created can be found peppered throughout our collections, often recognizable by his handwriting alone.

He also found time for a family. He married Sophia Walker in 1839, they settled in St Giles, Oxford, and went on to have 7 children together. Sophia was even involved in aspects of his work – a prolific artist, she created a series of illustrations of county bridges to accompany her husband’s records of bridges under the responsibility of the County. The album of illustrations, including those by Sophia, are viewable on Heritage Search: https://heritagesearch.oxfordshire.gov.uk/search/all:images/0_50/extended-mediaSimple_s%3Adrawings%20and%20paintings*extended-mediaSimple_s%3Amanuscripts/score_desc/county%20bridges?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAcGRvZgRzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA81MTQ3NzE1NjkyMjgwNjEAAR7FEm1kFk13L1SqLzkprZa3mNqzQsOzrhAvQQzvXyILISzP6Aei5YUjMVyGHw_aem_VjdszFJH8UDdlRVPOhtppg

John Marriott Davenport died in 1882 aged 72 and was buried in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery in Jericho. Many of his administrative roles were taken on by his son, Thomas Marriott Davenport

10/09/2026

Oxford Open Doors is taking place this weekend, at hundreds of sites around the city. There will be a huge number of buildings open to the public, along with exhibitions, tours and events.

At the Museum of Oxford at Oxford Town Hall, do go and explore the Plans, Plans, Plans! Exhibition. It will feature a selection of historic building plans chosen from the thousands held in the Oxford City Archives. The free exhibition will be open on Saturday 12th September between 11am and 3pm.

Oxford Open Doors is organised by Oxford Preservation Trust. For more information, visit the website here: https://www.oxfordpreservation.org.uk/open-doors.

07/09/2026

St Giles’ Fair returns to Oxford today. The fair has roots as a parish feast in the 17th century, before it eventually evolved into a funfair. It takes place in early September, typically on the Monday and Tuesday following the first Sunday after St Giles’ Day (1st September).

The fair has previously featured fairground rides, travelling exhibitions, menageries, boxing displays, shooting galleries, miniature railways and gift stalls. It drew people from far and wide, with thousands attending each year. A poem in Henry Taunt’s 1911 ‘Oxford Illustrated by Camera and Pen’ (pictured) reflects that, for many, an annual trip to the fair might be their only visit to Oxford.

The fair was threatened with abolition in the 1890s – some local townspeople were very concerned about the immorality and general rowdiness and mischief that took place. A newspaper article from 1893 talks of ‘indiscriminate kissing’ and youths ‘flounting their feathers [sic]’. A number of public notices also survive from the early 20th century warning fairgoers against assaulting others by throwing around rice, flour and other substances, or using a number of ‘instruments of personal annoyance’!

04/09/2026

Oxfordshire History Centre has recently welcomed Daniel Williams as our new History Service Manager.

Daniel has joined us from Buckinghamshire Archives, where he has been County and Diocesan Archivist for the past six years. He has built up a wealth of experience in the archives sector and is looking forward to working with the History Centre Team, along with local residents and organisations.

19/08/2026

Oxfordshire Health Archives (OHA) have produced a new online exhibition telling the story of the Warneford Hospital. It features a selection of records from the OHA collections held at the History Centre.

It’s part of the Warneford 200 project, celebrating the 200th anniversary of mental health provision at the Warneford through a series of exhibitions and events.

Visit https://www.oxfordshirehistory.org.uk/public/exhibitions.htm to view this and other exhibitions from both the Oxfordshire History Centre and the Oxfordshire Health Archives.

31/07/2026

On this day in 1718, two young lovers were tragically killed at Stanton Harcourt.

Sarah Drew (or Drue) and John Hewet were engaged to be married. When working outdoors during the harvest season they were struck by lightning, killing them instantly. The parish burial register makes a special note, ‘Theres two was killed by the thunder and Litinges thay were killed Stone dead’.

The incident was immortalised in an epitaph attributed to Alexander Pope, which was included on a memorial tablet erected on Stanton Harcourt church.

21/07/2026

A new exhibition is now open at The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. ‘Timeless Tales’ focuses on the folklore of the county, through tales of superstition, tradition and mythology.

A couple of items from our collections are featured, including the 1687 petition of Joane Walker of Bicester, accused by some in her community of being a witch, along with an account book recording 18th century medicines and treatments for illness.

The exhibition is free to all and is open until 6th September 2026. More information can be found here:
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/events/exhibitions-oxfordshire-museum/timeless-tales

17/07/2026

Did you know that Oxfordshire was home to one of the country’s most infamous highwaymen?

James Hind was born in Chipping Norton in 1616, the son of Edward Hind. After a series of failed local apprenticeships in his youth, James set his sights on London. Unfortunately, he quickly ended up in gaol, which is where he met and befriended highwayman Thomas Allen, setting him on a new criminal career path.

Joining Allen’s gang, he took part in their criminal enterprises, holding up and robbing riders and coaches around the country. Surprisingly, he was reported to be a somewhat courteous thief – relatively speaking - with stories of him engaging a number of his victims in polite conversation and sometimes leaving them a portion of their money or belongings. He was, however, said to have been responsible for one murder committed during a robbery.

He became a family man - there's a record of a James Hind marrying Margaret Rowlands in 1638 at Chipping Norton and subsequently having four children with her. When the Civil Wars broke out, Hind joined William Compton’s Horse and fought on the Royalist side at the Battle of Worcester. As a highwayman, he held to his strong Royalist sympathies, often targeting Parliamentarians. His exploits – likely somewhat overblown or fictionalised – were featured in sensational pamphlets of the time. His gang even attacked Oliver Cromwell’s coach! Unfortunately for them, most were captured and later executed on that occasion, with Hind luckily escaping.

In 1651, he was betrayed and arrested by government forces. By now infamous – known by some as ‘that grand thief of England’ – he was eventually put on trial for High Treason due to his Civil War activities. He was hung, drawn and quartered at Worcester on 24th September 1652.

His story was recounted in a contemporary play, along with a number of broadsheets. Our collections include a later printed copy of his ‘declaration’, made from Newgate Prison in 1651 (SV 2011), along with some more recent sources including collections of manuscript research notes (ref. P344/MS/1-2).

Address

St Luke's Church, Temple Road, Cowley
Oxford
OX42HT

Telephone

01865 398200

Website

https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/oxfordshirehistory

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Oxfordshire History Centre posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your organisation to be the top-listed government service in Oxford?