Oxford Ghost Signs: Hedderly at 14 Turl Street
Those who enter 14 Turl Street (currently The Missing Bean) step on this mosaic in the porch proclaiming HEDDERLY.
William Hedderly (or Hedderley) senior was baptised in Hampshire in 1828, and married Charlotte Restall there in 1856. Their first child Mary Jane Hedderly was born in Oxford in 1857 and their second Edith Hedderly in Turl Street, Oxford in 1859. At the time of the 1861 census they were living over their tobacconist's shop in the part of Turl Street to the south that falls in All Saints parish: this was presumably this shop at 14 Turl Street (numbered 10 until the early 1880s). Their eldest son William Frederick Hedderly was born soon after that census, and their younger children were all definitely born at 14 (then 10) Turl Street: Kate Witherall Hedderly (1864), Agnes Hedderly (1866), George Herbert Hedderly, known as Herbert (1869), Charlotte Louisa Hedderly (1872), and Ernest Ivy Hedderly (1875). The 1871 census shows William Hedderly's brother-in-law F. Restall, described as a tobacconist's assistant, at home at 14 (then 10) Turl Street with the Hedderly children and two servants.
By 1880 Hedderly also had a tobacconist's shop at 97 & 98 High Street, and this business survived until his premises were demolished in 1910 along with their five neighbours to make way for the Rhodes Building.
Wilkinson & Moore designed a new shop front for William Hedderly in Turl Street in 1881.
At the time of the 1881 census William's wife Charlotte (47) was living at 14 (then 10) Turl Street with her daughter Edith (22) and her son Frederick (19), plus three undergraduate lodgers: she was described as married and the head of the household. Her husband William Hedderly died on 18 September the same year at his home on Boars Hill (inquest reported in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 24 September 1881). His personal estate came to over £5,100, and he was described in his probate record as a tobacconist late of Turl Street.
His executors in 1881 were his widow Charlotte and Albert Davis, a printseller of 7 Turl Street, and then in 1882 his son William Hedderly junior was listed as the other executor in a duplicate probate record. Kelly's Directory for 1899 lists the executors of William Hedderly, tobacconist, as the occupants of 14 Turl Street.
At the time of the 1901 census Herbert Hedderly (31), described as a tobacconist and the brother of the head of the household was living at the present No. 14 (then numbered 14 & 15 Turl Street) with his unmarried sisters Mary (43) and Kate (36), plus their housemaid and kitchenmaid. The missing head of the household was William Hedderly junior, who is duly listed as the tobacconist at 14 & 15 Turl Street in Kelly's Directory for 1915.
There was no one living over 14 Turl Street (the left-hand side of this shop) at the time of the 1921 census, but the Presbyterian clergyman David Colville Lusk lived over No. 15 (the right-hand side) with his family and four servants.
By 1927 William junior's brother Herbert Hedderly, an athletic outfitter & tobacconist & cigar merchant, is listed in directories as occupying this shop, and from 1938 it was named the Oxford Sports Depot.
The photograph below shows 14 (formerly 14 & 15) Turl Street in 2026. It is a Grade II listed building (list entry 1369438).
