Programme for 2022-2023

All meetings are held at Radley Parish Church, Church Road, Abingdon OX14 2JN starting at 7.30 pm. Non-members are welcome – a donation of £2.50 is suggested.

Monday 12th September 2022 at 7.30 pm
Annual General Meeting followed by A Guide’s Guide: Working in Historic Houses in the 21st century
Speaker: Sarah Somerville
Sarah is the Visitor Services Officer at Shaw House, a Grade I listed Elizabethan manor house situated on the northern edge of Newbury and managed by West Berkshire Council as a visitor attraction and conference centre. As well as guiding tours of the house, Sarah manages events held at Shaw House and the gift shop there. Her talk highlights the varied skills needed to work in a historic house seeking to pay its way while being part of the local community in the 21st century.

Monday 10th October 2022 at 7.30 pm
Keble College and The Light of the World by Holman Hunt
Speaker: Lizzy Rowe
Lizzy looks at the origins of Keble College and tells some of the fascinating stories about its early days, focusing in particular on The Light of the World, the famous painting by William Holman Hunt that hangs in its Chapel. Lizzy teaches art history and leads guided tours of Oxford city centre and the Ashmolean Museum.

Monday 14th November 2022 at 7.30 pm
From Axtell to Zacharias: the men who built Oxford
Speaker: Liz Woolley
The talk examines some of the characters involved in the city’s enormous expansion during the Victorian period including builders, architects, property developers and landlords. Fortunes were made, reputations were lost, regulations were ignored, and political careers were boosted. Liz is a local historian specialising in aspects of Oxford and Oxfordshire, with a particular interest in the city’s ‘town’ as opposed to ‘gown’.

Monday 9th January 2023 at 7.30 pm
The History of the Railway from Didcot to Oxford
Speaker: Laurence Waters
Laurence draws on his extensive knowledge of local railway lines to tell us the history of the railway from Didcot to Oxford. Laurence has written several books about the Great Western Railway, the latest being Railways of Oxford: A Transport Hub that Links Britain. He is the Photo Archivist of the Great Western Trust at Didcot Railway Centre.

Monday 13th February 2023 at 7.30 pm
Thames Bridges between Oxford and Abingdon
Speaker: Keith Parry
After the Norman conquest, major bridges across the Thames were established at Oxford, Abingdon and Wallingford, initially as wooden structures and later as stone. Keith’s talk focuses on the older road bridges, particularly those in Oxford, Grandpont and Oseney, and Abingdon. Keith is a voluntary researcher at the Maidenhead Heritage Centre and a trustee of The Historic Towns Trust

Monday 13th March 2023 at 7.30 pm
The History of the Radley Lakes area up to 2000
Speaker: Richard Dudding
Until commercial gravel extraction began after World War II, the area known today as the Radley Lakes was farmland. Richard, Club archivist and secretary of the Radley Lakes Trust, describes the history of the area from the Iron Age to 2000. His talk offers a preview of the history chapter of a forthcoming book on the Radley Lakes story.

Monday 3rd April 2023 at 7.30 pm
The History of Oxford University
Speaker: Alastair Lack
Alastair read modern history at University College Oxford. After a career working for the BBC, he now lives in Oxford where he is a Green Badge Guide. Alastair is thus well-placed to present what might be called a ‘whistlestop stop tour’ of the history of Oxford University.

Note change of day to the first Monday of the month to avoid Easter Monday.

Monday 8th May 2023 at 7.30 pm
Growing up in a 1950s Corner Shop
Speaker: Josie Midwinter
Josie’s parents, Henry and Esther, ran Midwinter’s Grocery Shop in Didcot opposite the railway station where Josie grew up. Josie describes her memories of her childhood there and the role of corner shops at that time. Josie, a retired minister in the Church of England, has returned to her roots in Didcot for her retirement.

Monday 12th June 2023 at 7.30 pm
Six Warrior Women of the English Civil Wars, 1642-1651
Speaker: Stephen Barker
During the English Civil War, women were not meek bystanders who took no part in the conflict but actively participated in a variety of ways, challenging the orthodoxies of their day and perhaps our own preconceptions. This talk looks briefly at six women who took part in the fighting, undertook spying missions and negotiated deals with politicians. Stephen is an independent Heritage Advisor who works with museums, universities and other heritage organisations to design exhibitions and make funding applications.

Monday 10th July 2023 at 7.30 pm
50 Years in the Thames Valley Police Force
Speaker: Christine Bovingdon-Cox
Christine joined the Thames Valley Police Force in 1973 and worked in various departments including Child Abuse Investigation, Major Crime, Counter-Terrorism, Protection for the Royal Family and Members of Parliament, and Professional Standards. In recognition of her remarkable career, Christine received a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021.

August: No meeting

Monday 11th September 2022 at 7.30 pm
Annual General Meeting followed by:

Cemeteries of Oxford – More than a Century of History
Speaker: Trevor Jackson
Oxford today has four municipal cemeteries plus a number of parish cemeteries and churchyards. Trevor tells the story of the development and closure of cemeteries in the city over the years. Trevor was Oxford City Council’s Manager of Cemeteries for 12 years following his retirement from the RAF.

July 2022 meeting: Victorian sewers

On 11 July, in the welcome cool of the church, Tom Crook related how inadequate sewers in London led to the Great Stink of 1858.

In the 1800s, as the population grew, there were blockages in the sewers, intolerable pollution in the Thames, and outbreaks of typhoid, dysentery, and cholera.

An enlightened lawyer, Edwin Chadwick, led an Inquiry into the ‘Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain’. Their report, published in 1842, recommended better water supplies and public sewers. Unfortunately, the first attempts, for example in Croydon, failed because the new sewers were narrow pipes, which blocked.

In the hot summer of 1858, the Great Stink in the Thames became unbearable in Westminster, and the Government empowered the Metropolitan Board of Works to put into effect a plan prepared by their chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette for a huge network of local and giant main sewers, pumping London’s sewage to outfalls at Beckton and Crossness. One sewer ran under the newly created Thames Embankment. Bazalgette’s scheme worked, and still works. With hindsight, it would have been better to separate foul and rain-water drainage – as London and many other places around the country are now finding out.

Note from The History of Radley: In Radley, mains water was brought to the village in the 1940s and mains sewerage in the 1950s. Before then villagers relied on wells and cess pits.

Reports of previous meetings

June 2022 meeting: The Story of Poland

On 13 June 2022, Hubert Zawadzki spoke about The Land of the White Eagle: The Story Of Poland. The White Eagle is the symbol of Poland and Hubert recounted how its appearance on the Polish flag changed during the country’s history, reflecting its shifting boundaries and political vicissitudes.

Poland’s emergence dates from the 10th century, with the adoption of Christianity in 966. In 1385 it united with Lithuania and there followed 300 years during which their federal union thrived and religious tolerance was established. Yet it was also in this period that serfdom was consolidated, lasting until the 19th century.

In the final decades of the 18th century, Poland’s fortunes waned as its more powerful neighbours, Prussia, Russia and Austria, divided the country among themselves, with the Polish state disappearing in 1795. The 19th century was a period of failed insurrections and high emigration, especially to the USA, but also great artistic and scientific achievements (many by Poles living in exile).

Poland re-emerged after the first World War, only to be divided between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939 and occupied for most of World War Two by the latter, with devastating effects. From 1945 to 1989 Poland was a satellite of the Soviet Union.

Over the past 30 years, as an independent country, Poland has forged closer ties to the west, joining the EU in 2004 and enjoying rapid economic development. Hubert concluded that, despite these successes, recent history has left deep scars and a politically polarized society; there may be a bumpy road ahead.

Reports of previous meetings

May 2022 meeting: Members’ evening

The evening provided a chance for members to give a short talk about a person, place, item, event or topic they’d researched.

By careful examination of census returns, street directories, electoral registers and old maps, Joyce Huddleston has traced successive locations of Radley (sub) Post Office. In the second half of the 19th century, it was in a now demolished cottage on the corner of White’s Lane and Church Road; a VR postbox survives, opposite the church. By 1901, the Post Office had moved to what is now Baker’s Close, Lower Radley, where there was a thriving bakery and shop. By 1921, Alice Machin was the sub-postmistress at Walnut Cottage, Lower Radley. The last location, from the early 1920s until closure in 2013, was 23 Church Road (formerly 4 Council Houses). You can see the VR postbox on the Radley Heritage Walk.

Charlie Milward reported a tale of hope and tragedy. In the 1870s, agricultural workers in England suffered poverty and deprivation. Many emigrated, in the hope of a better life. In 1874, 17 members of the Hedges and Townsend families from Shipton-under-Wychwood embarked on the Cospatrick to sail to New Zealand. The ship caught fire 700 miles from the Cape of Good Hope and all the emigrants died. There is a memorial to them on Shipton village green.

By complete coincidence, Harriet Moggridge related a happier emigration story. Harriet’s mother Cass has published a book on the successful maiden voyage of the Charlotte Jane, 1848-1850, carrying emigrants and cargo to Australia, returning via China. Captain Alexander Lawrence (Harriet’s great great grandfather) was accompanied on the voyage by his young wife Miriam and their baby daughter. The book draws on a memoir written by Miriam and the ship’s log book. It recounts losing and replacing a mast, storms, rows among the emigrants, and arriving in the ‘incomparably beautiful’ Sydney harbour.

Using material from the Club archives, Joyce Huddleston related how Radley celebrated the Coronation in 1953. There was a procession up to Radley College, a dinner for older residents, street parties and a quarter peal of bells.

Richard Dudding described the Club’s extensive archives, which include wills, photographs, maps, journals, sound recordings – and a cricket scorebook. You can find the archive catalogue, and details of how to contact the archivist, on the Club’s website.

To round off the evening, members toasted the 25th anniversary of the Club’s first meeting.

Reports of previous meetings

April 2022 meeting: The first Oxford v Cambridge boat races

On 11 April, Mark Davies related the early days of the Oxford and Cambridge (men’s) boat races. The idea came to two school friends, Charles Wordsworth (Christ Church, Oxford), and Charles Merivale (Cambridge). In March 1829 Cambridge University Boat Club issued a challenge to the University of Oxford ‘to row a match at or near London, each in an eight-oared boat, during the ensuing Easter vacation’.

Stephen Davies, boatbuilder at Oxford, was requested to post this challenge ‘in some conspicuous part of his barge’. Davies acted as coach to Oxford college crews, and became known as ‘Professor of Rowing’.

The first race took place at Henley, actually in June 1829; watched by large crowds. Oxford won. The rowers from Oxford wore dark blue, the Christ Church colours; the Cambridge crew was in pink or scarlet. In 1836, after protracted arguments about the course, Cambridge won the second race, from Westminster to Putney. This time the Cambridge boat was adorned with a light blue ribbon.

In 1843, again in Henley, Oxford won, though rowing with only 7 men. Their boat was displayed opposite Grandpont House, near Folly Bridge, where it became rotten and decayed. In 1867 Thomas Randall, a tailor who lived at Grandpont House, purchased it and had it incorporated into the President’s chair inside the university barge.

From 1845 the course was between Putney and Mortlake.

Reports of previous meetings