by Richard Dudding
Foreword by Professor Robert Evans
Published September 2025
108 pages, colour throughout
57 photographs and maps
Paperback original
ISBN 978-1-83688-349-4
Available from 8 September 2025 – all proceeds from sales go to Radley History Club
£15.00 (plus £3.50 for UK P&P)
- Buy in person from Radley Village Shop
- For a single copy for UK delivery, buy online with your card or PayPal account using the ‘Buy Now’ button below
- To buy more than one copy or for overseas delivery, please email the author.
One copy for UK delivery only
About the book
This book is about Wick Hall in Radley near Abingdon, and the Dockar Drysdale family who purchased and then transformed it in the nineteenth century. An intriguing piece of local history, it also opens a window on wider social change.
William Dockar moved penniless from northern Scotland to London and built a small fortune from overseas trade and property. After he bought Wick Farm in Radley, his daughter Josephine turned it into Wick Hall, a grand residence and a social statement.
Josephine dominated the village and her own family. She is typically regarded as a controlling tyrant. The book uses contemporary evidence, much of it previously unknown, to build a more balanced account and to recognise her achievement as a woman in an overwhelmingly male world.
The book also takes us wider to a dynamic world where global trade and property could create fortunes, to the impact of Scottish emigrés, to an unlikely friendship with the family of Ramsay MacDonald, and to wider changes in social behaviour and aspiration.
The author is the archivist for both Wick Hall and Radley History Club. He has written about several aspects of Radley village’s history, including the manor, church, land and buildings. Before moving to the area he had a career in the Civil Service, after studying history at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Download a flyer (PDF) with details about the book and how to obtain a copy.
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Wick Farm
Chapter 3 William Dockar
Chapter 4 Josephine and her father
Chapter 5 The Wick Hall project
Chapter 6 The dominant Radley landowner
Chapter 7 Lossiemouth
Chapter 8 Ogress or icon?
Chapter 9 William and his family
Chapter 10 Financial problems
Chapter 11 Diverging agenda
Chapter 12 To Canada and back
Chapter 13 Epilogue
Annex A Dockar Drysdale family trees
Annex B The wider circle
