Vicars of the three older Headington parishes
St Andrew’s Church, Old Headington
(founded in Saxon times)
Patrons of St Andrew's Church:
- 1222–1542: St Frideswide's Priory
- 1542–1545: Cardinal College/Christ Church
- Sold to a group of London merchants who held the patronage briefly
- 1547–1879: The Lords of the Manor of Headington
- 1879–1927: Mrs Martha Rawlinson of Eltham, Kent (M. A. C. Rawlinson), who in 1927 gave the patronage of St Andrew's Church to Keble College, Oxford.
(This is the former Martha Ann Cubbidge Crundwell, the only child of the late George Crundwell of Headington Lodge, who on 28 September 1876 at St Andrew's Church married Ralph Rawlinson of Eltham, Kent:. Mrs Rawlinson died aged 83 in September 1935.) - 1927–present: Keble College, Oxford
St Andrew's Church prior to 1680
For much of its history St Andrew's Church was served by chaplains and curates. From 1222 to 1451 it did have a Vicar, and known names are John PIPPARD in the mid-fourteenth century and Gregory BOTTELE in 1375–6.
In 1636 John HORNE, M.A. (Oxon), Fellow of Oriel College until he was expelled by the Visitors in 1648, was appointed Vicar of Headington
More information about the church's medieval vicars is held in the Oxfordshire History Centre.
St Andrew's Church from 1680
In 1680 the endowment of the living was permanently restored, but until 1876 most of the Vicars were pluralists and/or held positions in colleges and lived in Oxford, leaving their curate to do all the work.
Vicars of St Andrew's Church, Headington from 1680 (when the |
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Dates of |
Name, and date |
Brief details |
1680–1693 |
Richard |
Son of Robert Newlin of Oxford city, pleb. |
1693–1700 |
William
|
Son of William Sherwin senior of Oxford city, pleb., who was a Yeoman Bedel of the University. Matriculated by Magdalen College aged 14 on 17 October 1683. Fellow of Merton College from 1688. |
1700–1711 |
Thomas
|
Vicar of Headington from 23 September 1700 to 26 February 1711. |
1711–1727 |
John |
Second son of John Irons senior of Noke. Vicar of Headington 1711 to 1727. |
1727–1744 |
George |
Studied at Wadham College, Oxford. Vicar of Headington from 27 May 1727 to 21 December 1744 Then Rector of Compton Valence, Dorset from 1745 until his death on 18 July 1767 |
1744–1752 |
William |
Studied at Merton College, Oxford |
1752–1776 |
Henry
William BURROUGH, |
Henry Yardley was the son of George Yardley, clerk, of Notgrove, Glos. Matriculated by Trinity College, Oxford on 27 March 1723, aged 17. Yardley arranged from the start for the Vicarage of Headington to be held on his behalf by William Burrough: see Yardley's letter to the Bishop of Oxford dated 16 December 1751, published in The Correspondence of Bishop Secker (Oxford Historical Society, 1991) William Burrough was the son of William Burrough senior of Cheyneys, Buckinghamshire He stood in for Yardley from 1752 until the latter died in 1756 and then continued as Vicar of Headington from 1752 to 1776. He obtained his B.D. at Oxford in 1755 during his incumbency, and was simultaneously Vicar of Great Waltham in Essex (1755–1862), Rector of Long Bredy in Dorset (1762–1790) and Vicar of Aylesbeare, Devon (1763) |
1776–1804 |
John
|
Born at Seaborough in Somerset in 1741, the son of John Wills senior. Matriculated at the University of Oxford by Hertford College on 18 March 1758 at the age of 17, and then won a scholarship at Wadham College. He obtained his B.A. in 1761 and was appointed a Fellow of Wadham in 1765, becoming a Doctor of Divinity in 1765. Friend of Parson Woodforde: played whist with him in New College MCR on afternoon of 31 August 1769 He was Vicar of Headington from 1776 to 1804, and simultaneously not only served as Warden of Wadham College from 29 October 1783, but was also Rector of Shalden in Hampshire from 1776 to 1777, of Tydd St Mary in Lincolnshire in 1778, and of Seaborough, Somerset from 1779 until his death. In addition he served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1792 to 1796. He died on 16 June 1806. |
1804–1835 |
Thomas
Henry |
|
1835–1876 |
Joseph
Charles |
|
1876–1879 |
Alleyne
Ward
|
Born at Islington, Middlesex on 27 June 1832 Matriculated at the University of Cambridge (Pembroke College) in Michaelmas Term 1845: gained a First in the Moral Sciences Tripos 1855 Ordained at Oxford: Deacon in 1855, Priest in 1856. Curate of Sunningwell, Berkshire 1855–8. He then went to India and served as Chaplain at Arcot, Madras from 1858 to 1860. He was Chaplain of the Vepery Church in India from 1862 to 1864, and on 18 August 1864 at Dunchurch, Warwickshire he married Elizabeth Wheler Hume, daughter of George Hume of Toft, Warwickshire. He was Chaplain of Madras Cathedral in India from 1865 to 1867. Their daughter Gwendoline was born in Madras in c.1866, and Beatrice in Rainham, Norfolk in 1868. On 19 December 1868 he was appointed Curate of Charlecote, near Kineton in Warwickshire. He was appointed Vicar of Waterperry in Oxfordshire in November 1870, and served there until 1876. He was Vicar of Headington from 1876 to 1879 He was then Rector of St Margaret’s Church in Canterbury from 1880 to 1887 and of Halstead, Kent from 1887 to 1891 Heived latterly at East Pallant, Chichester and died there on 16 November 1904 |
1879–1889 |
Edmund Francis |
Born in 1852 in Tatsfield, Surrey, he was the eldest son of the Revd Henry Annesley Tyndale and Harriet Frances Guise. His father was appointed Rector of Holton in Oxfordshire in 1856. Edmund was matriculated at the University of Oxford by Magdalen College on 21 January 1871, aged 18, and was home with his parents at Holton Rectory at the time of the 1871 census. He was awarded a Third in History in 1874. He was appointed Vicar of Headington in 1879. At the time of the 1881 census he was living on his own with a servant in New High Street, Headington but shortly after on 21 April 1881 at Loders in Dorset he married Marcia Louisa Edersheim. Near the end of that year they moved into Headington's first vicarage, and their six children were born there and baptised at St Andrew's Church. In 1889 he became Vicar of New Shoreham in Sussex, but on 11 December that year he died there at the age of 37. |
1889–1899 |
John
Holford SCOTT Known as John Holford SCOTT-TUCKER from 1893 to 1908 |
|
1899–1915 |
Robert
Walter TOWNSON |
|
1916–1924 |
Alexander |
Born in Reading on 17 December 1861, the youngest of the nine children of the Revd John Hopkins Armstrong and Jane Isabella Hobart Matriculated by the University of Oxford by St Mary Hall on 19 October 1881, aged 19. Obtained his BA in 1884 Ordained priest in 1887. He served five curacies between 1885 and 1908, and on 11 June 1896 in Staines, Middlesex, he married Kathleen Mary Hamm. He was Vicar of St Michael's Church in Beckenham from 1908 to 1915. He was Vicar of St Andrew's Church from 1916 to 1924. At the time of the 1921 census he was boarding with his wife at 10 St Andrew's Road while the vicarage was occupied by Russian exiles. He left Headington in 1924 and died at Eastbourne on 13 March 1947. |
1924–1946 |
Henry |
Bird was born in Islington in 1870, the son of Edward Daniel Pidding Bird and his wife Alice. He was aged 47 and the Vicar of St John's at Stamford Hill, Surrey when on 28 July 1917 at Sutton, Surrey he married Kathleen Pryer (27). He was living in the vicarage of that church at the time of the 1921 census with his wife and their one-year-old son. He was appointed Vicar of St Andrew's in 1924, and he also preached in Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry: in a letter to his brother Warnie on 24 October 1931, C. S. Lewis refers to him as “Thistle-Bird” The 1939 Register shows Bird with his wife Kathleen and student son Maurice and his mother-in-law living in Headington Vicarage. He retired in 1946, and was living at 52 Agincourt Road in Hampstead when he died at New End Hospital there at the age of 71 on 26 November 1948 |
1946–1955 |
George
|
Day was born in Dunfermline on 13 November 1899, the son of George Ernest Day, the Rector of Dunfermline, and his wife Sophia. At the time of the 1921 census he was a theological student at Keble College, Oxford, at home with his parents in the rectory at Bobbingworth, Ongar, Essex. On 18 January 1927 in Bengal, India he married Leslie Mary McGregor, and their daughter Priscilla was born in Kent in 1932. At the time of the 1939 Register he was Rector of St Martin's with St Paul in Canterbury and was living at 15 Lower Bridge Street there. In December 1942 he was appointed Rector of Uckfield in Sussex. He was Vicar of St Andrew's from 1946 until his death at the vicarage on 8 July 1955. |
1956–1964 |
Derek
Ian |
|
1964–1971 |
Christopher
|
Anstey was born in Cheadle, Staffordshire on 26 January 1925. He read Classics at the University of Oxford and then Theology, but his education was interrupted by war service, and on 10 December 1944 he was promoted from cadet to Second Lieutenant in the Royal Armoured Corps. He married Mary Cockburn in Eastbourne near the beginning of 1946, and they had five children. He was ordained in 1951 and was a curate in West London for six years and then Vice-Principal of Chichester Theological College for seven years. He was appointed Vicar of St Andrew's Church in 1964, but left in 1971 to take a one-year Certificate of Education course at the University of Oxford, and in 1972 he was appointed a religious education teacher at Bredbury Comprehensive School near Stockport. He moved on to a school in Netherton near Dudley in 1975. He died in 1997. |
1971–1978 |
Robert
Martin |
Jeffery studied at King's College London. He trained for the priesthood at St Boniface College in Warminster, and was ordained in 1959 and served as curate in Sunderland and Southwark. He married Ruth Tinling in 1968 and they had four children. He was Vicar of St Andrew's from 1971 until 1977, when he was appointed Vicar of Tong and Archdeacon of Salop. In 1987 he was appointed Dean of Worcester. He returned to Oxford in 1996 as a Canon of Christ Church. He retired in 2002 and died at Sobell House on 21 December 2016 and after a funeral in Christ Church Cathedral he was buried in Shropshire with his wife. Full obituary in Oxford Times of 19 January 2017 |
1978–1983 |
Paul
|
(The first to live at the new vicarage at the rebuilt 33 St Andrew's Road; became a Roman Catholic) |
1983– 2010 |
Michael |
|
2011–2024 |
Darren McFARLAND |
|
2025 |
Emma HOPEGOOD |
|
Prior to 1881 no special house was provided for the Vicar of St Andrew's, but from 1881 to 1977 St Andrew's House on the corner of St Andrew’s Road and Osler Road was the vicarage.
The above picture on the Historic England website was taken by Henry Taunt in 1888. It shows the Revd Francis Guise Tyndale (Vicar of St Andrew’s Church from 1879 to 1889), the first Vicar to occupy the vicarage, with his wife Marcia Louisa and his four daughters, baby son, and nursemaid. His five children were all born here: Mary Elfrida Tyndale (3 February 1882), Dorothy Frances Tyndale (10 June 1883), Oriane Sophy Tyndale (2 July 1884), Marcia Edersheim Tyndale (13 August 1886), and Henry Edmund Guise Tyndale (10 December 1887).
The Revd Tyndale left to become Vicar of Shoreham in Sussex in May 1889, but died there at the age of 37 near the end of 1889. The plaque below is on the wall of St Andrew's Church in Headington:
Some Curates of St Andrew's Church
Prior to 1876 Curates did most of the parish work and usually conducted baptisms, marriages, and funerals, as the church registers (originals now available on Ancestry) show.
The parish registers also show other people assisting the Curates in the mid-1770s, and some duties at St Andrew's were undertaken by the Revd Nathaniel Alsop Bliss (b.1746) of New College, who was a friend of James Woodforde. Parson Woodforde records on Wednesday 24 August 1774, “Had a letter this Evening from Bliss to desire me to serve Headington again for him Sunday next”. Before that Woodforde had to come up on Saturday 27 August, though, and Woodforde recorded that day: “I went to Headington at half past 11. o'clock this morning on foot, and married a Couple there for Blisse before the Clock struck 12 – I recd. for it 0: 10: 6. The People's Names were Lazarus Cox of Headington a Labourer & Mary Ayres of the City of Oxford. They were married by Licence.” The marriage, signed by James Woodforde, is duly recorded in the parish register of St Andrew's Church:
Then the next day (Sunday 27 August), Woodforde wrote: “As it was very wet this morning I did not go to Headington, but as it held up in the aft: I walked there in the afternoon & read Prayers & christned a Child there by name William”. Yet again on the next Sunday (4 September) Woodforde walked up to Headington in the morning to read prayers and preach, and christen a child. Finally, on 5 February 1775: “After breakfast I took a Walk to Headington by desire of Proctor Webber and read Prayers and Preached there for Blisse, he being in the Country.”
From 1802 to 1806 the Curate was the outspoken James Palmer, who resigned following the dispute with Joseph Lock over the funeral path from Quarry.
From about 1840 to 1855 the Curate under the Revd Pring was Charles Pourtales Golightly.
By 1863 John Robinson was Curate of Headington.
By 1865 he was negotiating for some rooms in Old High Street (Linden Cottages) to be used for a refreshment and recreation room, but sadly he died of smallpox after visiting a sick man, and Headington had to wait until 1880 until the British Workman opened.
There is a stained-glass window dedicated to the Revd Robinson in St Andrew's Church (right). The text below the three panes reads:
To the Glory of God
and in affectionate
remembrance of the Rev. JOHN ROBINSON
who died November 22nd 1864 of small pox
contracted in the discharge of his duties
as curate of this Parish
By Public Conscription AD 1865
He is buried in St Andrew’s churchyard.
In 1866 Lewis Stacey Tuckwell was appointed Curate of St Andrew's Church. He was instrumental in getting a chapel of ease erected in 1870 in New Headington and an infant school there in 1873, and in 1874 he set up a Church of England Temperance Society (CETS) in the parish. He was much loved, and when he left to become Rector of Standlake in 1876, 190 parishioners contributed to a fund to buy him a harmonium. He eventually retired to live in east Oxford, and on 12 October 1916 at Cowley St John Church he married for the first time at the age of 77. He died at their Iffley Road home at the age of 83 and was buried at Standlake on 8 July 1922.
From 1884 to 1886 Francis Alban Houssemayne Du Boulay served as the Curate of St Andrew's Church. He was born at Heddington Rectory in Calne, Wiltshire on 17 June 1859 and was matriculated at the University of Oxford by Keble College on 14 October 1878 at the age of 19, obtaining his BA in 1883. He was ordained at Cuddesdon as a Deacon on 14 June 1884 and as a Priest on 31 May 1885. He died unmarried in 1932.
Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry
(founded in 1849)
Vicars of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry |
|
Dates of |
Name, and brief details |
1849–1851 | Thomas MASTERMAN, M.A. (Oxon) |
1851–1853 | John JAMES, M.A. (Oxon) |
1853–1858 | Thomas Cooper BROWNE, M.A. (Cantab.). ad eundem 11 October 1858 |
1858–1863 | Samuel
Waring MANGIN, B.A. (Oxon) |
1863–1864 | Thomas Alfred WILLS, M.A. (Oxon) |
1864–1866 | William Robert HAVERFIELD, M.A. (Oxon) |
1866–1867 | George Frederick WILGRESS, M.A. (Oxon) |
1867–1870 | Arthur DALTON, M.A. (Cantab) |
1870–1891 | Charles
Pitman LONGLAND (1819–1908) |
1891–1916 |
Charles Francis Harding JOHNSTON, M.A. (Cantab) |
1916–1923 | Philip
Valentine DOYNE, M.A. (Cantab) |
1924–1935 |
Wilfred Savage THOMAS, M.A. (Cantab) |
1935–1947 |
Thomas Eric BLEIBEN |
1947–1956 |
Gerald C. MATTHEWS |
1956–1990 |
Ronald E. HEAD |
1990–1995 |
Christopher HEWETSON |
1995–2007 |
Thomas D. HONEY |
2007–2018 |
Tim STEAD |
2018–2024 |
Laura BIRON-SCOTT, M.A., Ph.D. (Cantab.) |
2025 |
Martin LITTLE |
All Saints Church, Highfield
(founded in 1910)
In the first 46 years of its life, All Saints Church had five different Vicars, but just one vicar held the post for the next 63 years from 1957 to 2020:
Vicars of All Saints' (Highfield) Church |
|
Dates of |
Name, and brief details |
1910–1920 |
Francis Tovey COLSON (1858–1929) |
1920–1935 |
Alured George CLARKE (1873–1946) |
1935–1943 |
David Brownfield PORTER |
1943–1947 |
Ronald Bryan LUNT |
1947–1956 |
Cecil Edward Campbell MARKBY |
1957–2020 |
James Edmund COCKE |
2021–2024 |
Interim minister: Leon CATALLO |
2024–2025 |
Priest in charge: Paul Niemiec |
