Abingdon People

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Gabrielle Lambrick

Gabrielle Lambrick

Gabrielle Lambrick (née Jennings) was born in south London, her father a hospital administrator and amateur art connoisseur…
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The Langfords' shop in Stert Street

The Langfords

The Langfords, from the mid−nineteenth to the late twentieth century, are an example of an entrepreneurial family that…
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Thomas Skurray

Henry Langley

Henry Langley was born in 1610, the son of an Abingdon shoemaker. He attended Abingdon School, and matriculated at Pembroke…
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Thomas Skurray

Francis Little

Francis Little, or Brooke, for he used both names interchangeably, was one of the most significant figures in Abingdon’s…
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Albert Lock in about 1916 in Royal Flying Corps uniform

Albert Edward Lock

Albert Lock spent much of his adult life living in Abingdon where he was a well-known figure and is still remembered by some…
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Edward Loveden Loveden

Edward Loveden Loveden was a regional magnate, economically powerful and politically influential throughout north Berkshire…
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Archie Kirkman Loyd with his son Geoff, in about 1908. The boy would be killed in the First World War.Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College

Archie Kirkman Loyd

Archie Kirkman Loyd was twice MP for the Abingdon Division of Berkshire, from 1895 to 1905 and from 1916 to 1918. Born in…
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Thomas Skurray

John Maberly

John Maberly, Abingdon’s MP from 1818 to 1832, was an entrepreneur and a businessman before he became a politician. Born…
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Sir John Mason

Sir John Mason

John Mason was an important patron of Abingdon in its transition from a property of the abbey to a chartered borough under…
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The former Matthews seed shop backing on to the Old Gaol

The Matthews Family

The Matthews family has been prominent in Abingdon business and communal affairs, for more than a hundred years. In the…
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Painting of the former Lion Hotel on High Street Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1931

The Mayhead family and the Lion Hotel

My grandfather, Basil Mayhead, was the last owner of the Lion Hotel on the north side of the High Street before it was sold…
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Richard Mayott

The Mayott family

The Mayotts were a leading family in Abingdon for more than two hundred years. Roger Mayott arrived from Horton in Staffordshire…
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Thomas Skurray

Thomas Medlycott

Thomas Medlycott was recorder of Abingdon, 1675-86 and 1687-9. He had been born in London in 1628, son of James Medlicott…
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Thomas Skurray

Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe

Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe, Abingdon’s MP from 1796 to 1807, was an excellent example of what at the time were called nabobs.…
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Benjamin Morland

Benjamin Morland was an Abingdon solicitor who has left an enduring memorial in the Old Gaol, which was built probably at…
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George Bowes Morland

George Bowes Morland

George Bowes Morland was a prominent citizen of Abingdon, and active in the affairs both of the town and of the county of…
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John Morton

John Morton was Abingdon’s MP from 1747 until 1770 and its recorder from 1753 until his death in 1780. Like several of…
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Airey Neave at the the Nuremberg trials

Airey Neave

Airey Neave was the last but one MP for the Berkshire county constituency of Abingdon which was abolished in 1983. Neave…
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John Thomas Norris

John Thomas Norris was Abingdon’s MP from 1857 until 1865. He was particularly helpful to the town in opposing the threatened…
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Father John Paul O’Toole

Father John Paul O’Toole

At the intersection of the Oxford and Radley roads in Abingdon is a group of buildings – church, cloister, presbytery,…
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top pic for Hyde Parker

Arthur Charles Hyde Parker

Arthur Charles Hyde Parker was a prominent and well-respected Abingdon resident. He worked for the Morland Brewery as a chemical…
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Richard Parsons’ bookshop and reading room at 1 Bridge Street before about 1852.

Richard Parsons

Standing on the steps of the County Hall looking towards St Nicholas’s Church today, it is easy to imagine that the grand…
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Thomas Skurray

John Pendarves

John Pendarves, minister of religion, was a Cornishman, born in 1623. He took his BA degree in Oxford just as the Civil War…
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Thomas Skurray

Thomasine Pendarves

Thomasine  Newcomen was born in Dartmouth, Devon, in 1618 into a pious and affluent family. In or before 1647, she married…
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The Peyman family – stonemasons and builders

The Peyman family lived in Abingdon throughout the nineteenth century and were an established family of stonemasons, builders,…
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The Pleydells

On 10 June 1689 both Harim Pleydell of The Corner House, Ock Street and his third cousin, the Revd Richard Pleydell MA, Headmaster…
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Bruno Pontecorvo in Russia, 1955

Bruno Pontecorvo

The unassuming semi-detached house at 5 Letcombe Avenue was a centre of world-wide attention in October 1950. It was the…
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Thomas Skurray

Elizabeth Poole

The Abingdon prophetess Elizabeth Poole was – almost certainly – born in the London parish of St Gregory by St Paul…
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Archdeacon Alfred Pott

Alfred Pott was vicar of St Helen’s, Abingdon, from 1867 to 1875. It was one of six parishes he served in during his fifty-two…
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Arthur E Preston in mayoral regalia, c.1912

Arthur Edwin Preston

Arthur Preston was a prosperous chartered accountant who lived in Abingdon for most of his life. He served the Borough Council…
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Harry Redfern

Henry Redfern – always known as Harry – was an important Edwardian architect with strong Abingdon associations. He was…
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The Abingdon Market Cross, by Sampson Strong, about 1605

John Richardson

John Richardson was Abingdon’s serjeant-at-mace from 1628 until his death in 1663. His functions included escorting the…
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Thomas Skurray

Thomas Richardson

Thomas Richardson was a prominent Abingdon townsman. He built up a grocery business serving the town and the surrounding…
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Thomas Skurray

Oliver Sansom

Oliver Sansom, leader of the Quakers in the Vale of White Horse, was born in 1636 in Beedon but of a family based in Charney…
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Thomas Skurray

John Sant

John Sant was one of the few abbots of Abingdon whose career path led beyond the confines of the Abbey. He became abbot in…
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Thomas Skurray

The Sellwood Families

Many of the élite families in Abingdon’s history may not have regarded themselves as Abingdon families at all. They were,…
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Thomas Skurray

Thomas Skurray

Born in Faringdon in 1868, Thomas Skurray was educated at King Alfred’s School in Wantage and Reading School, going on…
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Thomas Skurray

Richard Smyth (or Smith)

Richard Smyth (sometimes spelt Smith), Abingdon’s mayor in 1564, was owed favours by some very powerful people. He first…
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Thomas Skurray

John Francis Spenlove

John Francis Spenlove, Abingdon brewer and politician, was born on 27 March 1769 in Cornhill, London, the son of Francis…
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Thomas Skurray

Edward Stennet

With Edward Stennett, Abingdon can claim to have been at the origin of a new religious denomination. Many things are uncertain…
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