Mercers - Abingdon on Thames Town Council

From 1883 until 2001 the clothing business of Beesley’s was a respected family firm serving Abingdon and the surrounding villages. Even in 1883, it was already an old-established concern, trading as a mercer’s from the same premises.

Its recent history starts with William Beesley (about 1831-1883) and his wife Susan (d.1895). They are first recorded in Abingdon in 1850. Then or soon after, William began working for the Harris family, mercers, at 24 High Street.

In 1883 William was left the business in the will of Hannah Harris (widow), the last of that family. William lived for only a few weeks after inheriting the business, dying at the age of fifty-two, but his widow and their eldest son Ernest Herbert (d.1949) carried on the business.

In 1908 Oswald Barrett (about 1894-1983), a builder’s son from West Hanney, joined Ernest Beesley as an errand boy and junior sales assistant. After service in the First World War he rejoined Mr Beesley and soon became a partner in the firm of E H Beesley, Tailors and Outfitters, sealing the partnership by marrying Mr Beesley’s eldest daughter, Gladys (1899-1978), in 1926.

In the early 1920s the partnership bought the boot and shoe shop of J N Paul Ltd. It was situated on the corner of Winsmore Lane where Lloyds TSB Bank now stands. It moved firstly to 16 High Street and then to 26 High Street next to the main business, into which it was incorporated in 1971. A number of allied acquisitions between the wars proved less successful and were disposed of by 1948.

On the death of Ernest Beesley at Christmas 1949 his three daughters Gladys Barrett, Phyllis (1904-1963) and Madge [Hammond] (1901-1966) became partners with Oswald.

On 1 January 1950, David Barrett, (b. 1929) the son of Oswald and Gladys, joined the firm. He became a partner in 1954 and his wife Mollie (b.1930) in 1967.

Both Phyllis and Madge died in the 1960s. In 1968 Oswald suffered a heart attack and he and his wife retired from active participation in the firm, leaving David and Mollie to continue. The main business at 22-24 High Street dealt with menswear, ladies wear, school wear, drapery, and fabrics, while J. N. Paul Ltd at No 26 concentrated on footwear.

Gladys died in 1978 and Oswald in 1983, and in 1984 the main business was sold to Hodges Ltd, a large clothing company based in Swansea. It continued to trade from 24 High Street as Hodges and later as Dunn’s, but went into liquidation in 1996. David and Mollie Barrett continued at 26 High Street operating the school wear side of the old business, which Hodges had not acquired. This closed late in 1998. The Beesley company was finally liquidated in 2001 after over a hundred years in the hands of one family.

David Barrett

The Braunches were a leading family in Abingdon through several generations. A John Branch (d. 1488) worked from 1438 as a master carpenter on the building of All Souls College in Oxford. He was responsible for selecting and preparing the timber to be felled, and he may have been the designer of the hammer-beam roof in the chapel. Although his pay was only fractionally above that of the more skilled of the half dozen or so other carpenters employed, he was paid by the week and they by the day, so his income was probably more steady than theirs. He was almost certainly the John Braunche who leased property in 1438 from men whom we can recognise as leaders of the Fraternity or Guild of the Holy Cross, at that time not yet a chartered corporation. In 1440, John Braunche and his wife Avise (died 1490) took a house in West St Helen Street. The family’s connection with the Fraternity continued. Their son John (died 1521) carried on the carpentry business and was a Fraternity member. Their grandson Richard (about 1503−1544), who prospered as a woollen draper, was a master of the Guild. At the time of Amyce’s survey in 1554, Richard’s widow Elizabeth (about 1507−1556) was living in the Bury near the end of Lombard Street and deriving income from three adjoining properties in East St Helen Street, two of which, the present Nos. 55 and 51, still exist.

Richard’s elder son Thomas owned the Bull Inn on the corner of Littlebury Street (about where the NatWest Bank is now) but he died in 1565 and left it to his brother William (before 1538−1602), a woollen draper like his father but also a maltster. William continued the family tradition, becoming a governor of Christ’s Hospital, which had been established in 1553 to replace the old Fraternity. He was master four times between 1572 and 1593, as well as being mayor of Abingdon four times between 1563 and 1588. He also represented the town in the short-lived parliament of 1593.

It was in William’s time that factional conflict broke out in both the Corporation and in Christ’s Hospital, and he played a major role in it. This resulted in his oldest son Thomas (1557−1603) having his entry to these bodies delayed, so that he never achieved great distinction in them. Another son, Richard (1560−before 1602), became a clergyman and was rector of Hinton Waldrist and Longworth, while a third, Lionel (1566-1605), moved to London. In the next generation, the name of Braunche no longer appears among Corporation members and Hospital governors. Their position in Abingdon politics was taken up by a son-in-law, Robert Payne, who also inherited the Bull Inn. There was a John Braunche, saddler, who was active in Abingdon in 1637 but is not known to have taken any part in public affairs. Lionel’s offspring emigrated to Virginia and started an American branch of the family.

The Beesley and Barrett families

The Braunche family

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