St Anne’s School (Mrs Steenbuck's School)
Mrs Elisabeth Cecilie Henriette Steenbuck (or Steenbuch) was born on 9 August 1877.
Mrs Steenbuch, who had previously been in charge of Miss Steff's School in St Andrew's Road, ran her own private school for children up to the age of 14 in her home at 8 St Anne's Road (left) from c.1935 to c.1945.
The first mention of St Anne's Road in Kelly's Directory is in 1911, but the school is not listed until the 1935 directory. This indicates that the school was named after the road, rather than vice versa as has been suggested.
Who was Mrs Steenbuck?
Mrs Elisabeth Cecilie Henriette Holm (later Mrs Steenbuck, which was originally spelt Steenbuch) was born in Elsinore, Denmark on 9 August 1877 and baptised at Frederiksborg on 9 September. She was the daughter of Axel Charles Adolph Holm and Emilie Louise Holm, and can be seen at Frederiksborg in the 1880 and 1890 Danish censuses.
Hans Thomas Christian Steenbuch was born in Grenaa, Denmark on 7 November 1876 and baptised on 9 January 1877. He was the son of Hans Steenbuch and Elisabeth Cecilie Henriette Steenbuch.
They were married on 26 May 1900 in Denmark, and do not appear to have had any children. Mrs Steenbuch later became a naturalized British subject.
On 13 November 1911 Hans, who had been serving as Curate at St Dunstan's Church in Feltham, was appointed Curate at Paignton in Devon, and in March 1912 Mrs Steenbuck was reported as performing tableaux in Paignton with seven girls to raise money for the St Paul's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission in Japan.
Hans gained his B.D. at the University of London in 1913.
On 30 August 1919 it was reported in The Times that the Revd Steenbuch, who was now acting as Curate at the Christ Church Institution in Blackfriars Road, Southwark, had refused to visit a dying man there. A prominent Archdeacon felt that the Guardians should bear some of the blame, as Steenbuch had taken up a living at Braughing, Hertfordshire.
On 23 February 1921 the Steenbuchs arrived in New York after sailing from Southampton on the Aquitania, but Mrs Steenbuch appears to have returned early, as at the time of that year's census on 19 June she was living on her own at 38 Aquinas Street in Lambeth.
In 1925 she and her husband came to live in St Anne's Road in Headington. Their house was then numbered 4, but when the road was renumbered in c.1934 it became No. 8.
Her husband died there at the age of 50 on 1 December 1926, and was buried at Holy Trinity churchyard in Headington Quarry. His effects came to £2,053 6s. 4d.
From about 1931 to 1933 Mrs Steenbuck ran Miss Steff's School in Old Headington, but by 1935 she had opened her own school here at 8 St Anne’s Road in Headington Quarry parish. This was a private school for about 30 children aged between 5 and 14.
The 1939 Register shows Mrs Steenbuck, described as a teacher, living at 8 St Anne's Road with Agnes Cusack, a draper's clerk.
The school survived until 1945, when Mrs Steenbuck disappears from Oxford. It is hard to find a death record for her.
