No. 45: Former shop/house
No. 45 Broad Street was eleventh house from the right of group of thirteen houses dating from the first half of the seventeenth century that were demolished to make way for the New Bodleian Library (now the Weston Library) in 1937.
The house was in St Mary Magdalen parish. It was a wide house with extensive premises behind.
No. 45 was a tenement of Magdalen College, with the following leases granted:
- 1591: William Clarke, a labourer
- 1637, 1647: John Ellis, gent.
- 1662: Christopher Brooks
- 1677: Widow Brooks
- 1691: Richard Wood
- 1705: Mr Russee
- 1717: Dame Norreys.
In 1745, 1759, 1773, 1787, and 1801 leases were granted to the apothecary Thomas Curtis, and in 1772 when a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. Nos. 45 was duly in the occupation of Mr Curtiss, and its frontage measured 9 yards 1 feet 9 inches. In 1815 a lease was granted to the apothecary Richard Curtis.
On 14 October 1837 the tailors & drapers W. & J. Wallington announced that they had moved here from 10 High Street. They stayed here less than a year, and on 25 August 1838 William Wallington announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal that he was moving from here to to 14 Broad Street.
Sheldonian Chambers (billiard rooms) behind No. 45
There was a narrow passage to the east of No. 45 leading to a long outbuilding called Sheldonian Chambers and sometimes numbered 45A: this was used as Billiard Rooms from before 1841 to 1889, and then by other businesses. In the 1840s, the buildings at the back were numbered 45a and 45b.
The 1841 census shows Thomas Betteris, the Keeper of the Billiard Rooms behind, living here at No. 45 (possibly on the site of the billiard rooms) with his wife Charlotte and children Edwin, Ellen, and Louisa, plus a female servant. Five independent people also appear to have lived at No. 45, possibly in the main house.
Right: Thomas Betteris’s billiard room at 45a Broad Street in 1853, as illustrated in Cuthbert Bede, The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green.
On 16 October 1841 Theodore Jewitt announced that he had taken premises here at 45 Broad Street for the sale of marble, alabaster, paving, tiles, and much more.
Charlotte Sheard was widowed near the beginning of 1842 and in March that year moved her husband's wine business from 31 Broad Street here to 45 Broad Street. The 1851 census shows Charlotte and her two young children at No. 5: she was described as a wine merchant. In that year Thomas Betteris, described as a “Billiard Table Keeper” was still in the building behind with his wife and son Edwin (who had the same occupation), his daughter, and a servant.
John William Dickeson had married Betteris's daughter Louisa in 1845, and when Betteris died on 3 March 1858 he took over his business. The 1861 census shows Dickeson, described as a billiard table keeper here, occupying the whole of 45 Broad Street with his wife and five children, plus two servants. His wife Louisa died later that year.
By the time of the 1881 census Dickeson was here with his second wife Harriet and three young children, plus two general servants. Directories show that John Thorp the draper at No. 44 next door had expanded into part of this building.
Between 1876 and 1881 the main house at No. 45 only had a single occupant: at the time of the 1881 census this was was Aaron Thornton, an unmarried waiter of 49. The building may have been undergoing alteration at this time, ready to reopen as a boarding house in 1882.
Jackson's Oxford Journal on 1 August 1891 reported that the Electric Installation and Maintenance Company of London would be introducing electric light in Oxford from Cannon Whard in Osney, and that the very first subsidiary station in the city would be here at 45 Broad Street.
From 1882 to 1889 John Chaundy & Son’s “ye old picture shop” was at the former billiard rooms at 45b behind.
The 1901 census shows Thomas Pierce (51) a college servant and house agent, living here with his wife Emily, who was a lodging-house keeper, and their eight children, plus their servant page boy.
The 1901 census shows the estate agent Thomas Pierce still living at No. 45 with his wife and their five children. His son John (24) was an apprentice to an electrical engineer, and in 1904 the Oxford Chronicle reported that the offices of the Electric Company that had been at the back of this house “have been removed to the front premises in Broad Street, thereby offering to the public greater facilities of approach and convenience”.
At the time of the 1911 census fifteen rooms of No. 45 were occupied by Frederick Herbert Dyer Cutcllfffe (42), a teacher of English, and his wife Frances, their four children, his mother-in-law, and a woman who provided domestic help. Another three rooms in the house were occupied by an American lodger called Byron Johnson Rees. William Butler Yeats and his wife lodged here at No. 45 for two months from around the beginning of January 1918 before finding more permanent accommodation on the other side of Broad Street.
Cutliffe and his wife were still here in 1921, now with seven children. Boarding with them was the Magdalen College student David Robert Lindsay, Lord Balniel (20). Aother five boarders and their three servants lived in another part of the house.
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Occupants of 45 Broad Street listed in directories |
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45 |
45a |
45b at back |
1837–1838: 1839: 1842–1852: |
1846, 1852 |
1839–1889 1861–1889: John William Dickeson |
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1861–1876: 1876 1880: |
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1882–1889 |
1893–1895 |
1882–1890 |
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1904–1910:
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1889–1911 |
1904–1908: |
The situation here is complicated.
From 1893 to 1904 Biddle Adams & Co. (tailors)
are also listed at No. 45. |
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1911–1936: |
1921–1928: |
1921–1935: |
This house was demolished with twelve neighbouring
houses in 1937 |
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See the bound typescript in the Bodleian Library entitled “The
Demolished Houses
of Broad Street and the Freeborn Family”
(1943), attributed to Emily Sarah Freeborn,
and the webpage by Alan Simpson which reproduces some of the material in it.