51 Holywell Street on the right used to be a house and 52 Holywell Street on the left a shop. Since the 1970s the whole building has been part of the north quadrangle of Hertford College.
This is a Grade II Listed Building (1047238), with the following description:
Nos 51 & 52 SP 5l06 NE 6/258 14.3.69. II GV 2.
House and shop. One building. Late C18 three-storeyed stuccoed rubble on cellars with a band at the first floor and a Welsh slate roof. The ground floor has a coachway on East, a bay shop front and one Cl8 sash window. The bay is carried up through the first and second floors, in each of which is a three-light sash window. On each side of the bay is a sash window in a moulded wood frame in each floor. Most of the windows have glazing bars.
Richard Wall was described as a plumber and glazier of Holywell when on 19 July 1820 he married Margaret Cox at Dorchester, and he may already have occupied this property. He was certainly here by 1839. He died here on 7 May 1848 at the age of 64.
The plumber & glazier Robert Thomas took over the plumbing business here in 1848, but Richard Wall's widow Margaret continued to live in the private part of these premises until her own death on 20 November 1862 at the age of 73. William Tuckwell in Reminiscences of Oxford (1901) wrote of Robert Thomas:
A humbler philosopher in the same line [as Mr Walker in the Clarendon] was Thomas, a Holywell glazier, who used to give gratuitous popular lectures in the music-room to working men, using implements and apparatus, magnetic galvanometers, induction coils, cleverly fashioned by himself. He was genuinely and widely scientific; made an interesting discovery as to the thinness at which decomposed glass yields contemporary colours — I have some of his specimens in my cabinet — discovered that certain double salts, crystallised at particular temperatures, assume special forms and become beautiful microscopic objects — an electrician, a naturalist, an optician, a discoverer, a working man.
The business of R. Thomas & Son, decorators and plumbers, remained at 52 Holywell Street until the late 1940s. The advertisement below was in Kelly's Directory for 1927:
The artist James Allen Shuffrey lived at 51 Holywell Street on the right between 1906 and 1908.
The two parts of this building were often connected, and in 1952 the business of R. Thomas & Son expanded to include No. 51 on the right.
In 1974 a planning application by Hertford College to construct a new quadrangle (74/00737/LA_H) was approved . This included the restoration of the five houses at 51–55 Holywell Street and they are now part of that college.
51–52 Holywell Street in the censuses
1841
The 1841 census for Holywell does not give house numbers, but it is possible to deduce where people listed that year lived by examining directory entries between 1839 and 1842 and later censuses
No. 51
Richard Wall (50), a plumber, lived here with his wife Margaret (50) and one female servant.
1851
No. 51
Margaret Wall (61), described as the widow of a plumber & painter and the owner of houses and fundholder, lived here with one servant.No. 52
Robert Thomas senior (45), a plumber & painter employing two men and one apprentice, lived here with one servant.
1861
No. 51
Margaret Wall (72) still lived here with her female servant.No. 52
Robert Thomas senior (a widower of 55), a plumber & glazier employing 13 men and one boy, lived here with an undergraduate lodger and his two servants.
1871
No. 51
Robert Thomas junior (35), a painter, had moved into Margaret Wall's house with his wife Mary Ann (30) and his children Mary (9), Frank (8), Helen (5), Herbert (3), and Sidney (eleven months). They had one general servant.No. 52
Robert Thomas senior (65), a painter & glazier, still lived here, now with his new wife Caroline (48) and their son John (5), plus two servants.
1881
No. 51
John Jenkins (38), a cook, lived here with his wife Louisa (28) and his children Emily (8), Maud (6), and Ada (2). They had a servant boy aged 13.No. 52
Robert Thomas junior (45), now a painter & plumber employing 39 men and two boys, had moved next door to Robert Thomas senior's house where he lived with his wife Mary (40) and his children Mary (19), Ellen (15), and Allan (6). They had one general servant.
1891
No. 51
The tenant was recorded as being temporarily absent.No. 52
Robert Thomas (51), a widower and house decorator, lived here with his sons Frank (29), who did the same work as his father, and Eric (9) They employed an 18-year-old servant girl.
1901
No. 51
Caroline Smith (29), a widowed lodging-house keeper, lived here with her children Arthur (12), Frank (10), Sarah (7), and Charles (5). They had a servant girl of 16.No. 52
Robert Thomas (65), a decorator and plumber, worked from this house. He lived here with two of his unmarried sons: Frank (38) was a partner in the business, while Eric (20) worked for his father.
1911
No. 51
Miss Edith de la Mare (59), a boarding-house keeper from Guernsey, lived here with a visiting French student.No. 52
No listing for the Thomas plumbing and decorating business.
1921
No. 51
Miss Beatrice R. Dale (53), who had no occupation, lived here with her servant.No. 52
Alfred Parrott (60 lived here with his wife Alice (58) and their three sons. Alfred was described as a decorator and his sons as painters for the firm of Robert Thomas that operated from this house,
1939 Register
No. 51 (no listing for No. 52)
The City Engineer & Surveyor Andrew Carstairs lived here with his wife Frances and their son.No. 52
No listing
Occupants of 51–52 Holywell Street listed in directories etc. |
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| No. 52 (shop, left) | No. 51 (house, right) | |
1772 |
Mr Baynes |
|
1839–1846 |
Richard Wall |
George Farrant (by 1846) |
1851–1852 |
Robert Thomas senior, painter,
R. Thomas & Son (Oxford) Ltd (and at No. 51 in 1884–1887) |
Mrs Margaret Wall |
1861 |
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1866–1881 |
Robert Thomas junior, |
|
1889 |
Miss Broughton |
|
1896–1901 |
Mrs Caroline E. Smith |
|
1905 |
Arthur George |
|
1911 |
Miss Edith de la Mare |
|
1914–1926 |
Miss Dale with Mrs Mary Helen Carew, |
|
1927–1930 |
Walter L. Williams |
|
1933–1940 |
Andrew Carstairs |
|
1941–1947 |
Mrs M. Gibson Cary |
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1949 |
No listing |
Robert B. Forster |
1952–1960 |
R. Thomas & Son (Oxford) Ltd |
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1962 |
Gray & Thomas (Oxford) Ltd |
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1964–1967 |
Homefinding Accommodation Agency |
|
1970–1972 |
No listing, except for Colin Douglas at No. 51 in 1973 |
|
1975–81 |
Infilled and restored (with 53–55 to the east) |
|
Today |
Part of Hertford College |
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